


People in the mirror are closer than they appear

by Nele



Series: People in the Mirror [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-31 03:32:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 177,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nele/pseuds/Nele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starts about half a year before season one. Prince Zuko is growing up and discovering new ways to make Lieutenant Jee's life miserable. Just when Jee has had a bad, bad week of Captain Zhao popping in, an invisible thief stealing his things, his crew acting up, and an enemy bird invading his ship, Zuko brings matters to a head in bad, bad way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Captain Zhao ruins everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dancing Serpent (Phaeton)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phaeton/gifts).



> The first two chapters of this fic, which the summary describes, originally formed a single one-shot posted for the 2011 White Lotus Lunar New Year Exchange. I'm not sure exactly how long the fic will end up as, but the story will definitely go to the end of season one.
> 
> Please note, this is a repost. I had a brain hiccup on 14/02/2012 and accidentally deleted the whole fic instead of the excess draft chapter I meant to remove. Many, many apologies for that, especially to all the people whose wonderful comments and kudos were deleted. It wasn't possible to restore them, but they're still warm and safe in my mailbox. I suppose this incident is pretty emblematic of the whole fic: the protagonists face many great and unexpected troubles, and most of them are self-inflicted.

__  
**Letter left at the bar of a very cheap inn at the edge of the royal port district, adressed to Lieutenant Jee Heng**    


_Dear Lieutenant,_

_I hope this missive finds you well, and that you will forgive its brusque tone. I am very pressed for time._

_Since you appear to be somewhat between engagements and a bit at odds with our good law enforcement officers, I trust you will consider accepting the following proposal. I find myself in sudden need of loyal and able-bodied men to crew a small vessel. I would like you to captain said vessel on a journey as of yet undetermined length outside of the Fire Nation. You would be responsible for outfitting the ship, gathering the rest of the crew, and assuming day to day command under my direction. I fear we have only a few days to prepare for departure, but I hope you will still manage to track down some old and friendly faces from our time at Ba Sing Se. If you can find Cook, I will be eternally in your debt._

_Enclosed are the documents detailing our budget (sadly limited), my basic requirements, and papers attesting to your captaincy of the vessel, which will allow you permission to board immediately. Your new ship is named Yuan and moored at the third western dock. I will meet you there at sunrise tomorrow morning, together with my young nephew, who will be accompanying us on our journey. Prince Zuko is thirteen and about as brash as one would expect anyone of that age to be, but he is a kind and caring boy. I trust you will find you have much in common with him._

_I thank you for your service, also on behalf of my nephew, who is unable to write to you in person at this moment._

_General Iroh_

_  
_

* * *

  
When Jee later complained to his crew about the General's gross misrepresentation of his nephew in that first letter, most of them nodded in sympathy. Cook disagreed and said there was definitely some truth in the General's words. Jee and Prince Zuko  _did_  have many things in common, Cook insisted, namely every single one of their many, many character flaws.

Jee opened his mouth to yell at the man, but snapped it shut again when he realized that yelling was what Zuko would do.

At least Jee was old, self-aware and sane enough to admit that he  _had_  character flaws. For instance, he knew he was very bad at doing what he was told, but couldn't be left to his own devices for a week without at least getting arrested. Most superior officers brought out the absolute worst in him, but General Iroh had always been the one shining exception. Jee had served at Ba Sing Se for the full six hundred days, and he'd had ample time to find out that the General was just, firm, and rather fun as far as commanders go. He'd been reassigned to Captain Zhao's ship after the end of the great Siege, and that had been a nightmare among nightmares by comparison. Jee was rather happy to have the General pick him up again, even if it was completely out of the blue and for nebulous purposes.

That was before he realized that the General considered himself retired and was no longer interested in commanding anyone to do anything. The child he brought on board, though, took over control of the ship from his uncle with horrifying speed and determination. Zuko was not a kind and caring boy. He was a self-centered little demon with a temper like five vats of blasting jelly, and from the very first time he opened his mouth, Jee knew that there would be no getting along with him.

Zuko wasn't worse than Zhao, but only because he was so much easier to dismiss. He would have been a contender if he'd just been  _bigger_. Jee did try to take him seriously at first - because he was a prince, for the General's sake, and because that strange injury looked damned painful and Jee wasn't heartless. But he just couldn't do it. Zuko was patently ignorant about what it took to run a ship, barely competent at firebending, unbalanced, and phenomenally rude. Within a week, Jee gave up on him and did what he always did when settling in to survive a commander he couldn't respect. He did his job on the ship, ignored Zuko as thoroughly as he could, and coated his attitude with a layer of superficial politeness so that he couldn't be accused of outright mutiny. Zuko wasn't entirely stupid. He noticed what Jee was doing and tried to bring him under control again, mostly by yelling more and louder. Unlike Zhao, though, the brat didn't have the balls to follow through on his threats or the authority to make them sound even a little serious. Jee just wasn't intimidated by superior officers who couldn't look him in the eyes unless they stood on a bucket.

Zuko made himself extremely difficult to ignore, though. It didn't help that the General let his nephew get away with absolutely everything. Half of the men Jee had recruited for the Yuan's journey had served under the General before, and they didn't understand why he let Zuko run them ragged, insult them, and belittle them for trying to do their jobs  _in spite_  of a bratty prince getting in their way. They were used to the General giving a damn about the little people. Now the only thing he seemed to care about was drinking tea, playing pai sho, and staring at Zuko's back with an expression that was disturbingly reminiscent of how he'd looked at Prince Lu Ten whenever he used to depart for battle.

After a while, though, even the General seemed to notice that morale on board was comparable to that of a very noisy graveyard. He picked himself up and became a little more like the cheerful man Jee remembered. The good old tradition of music night was reinstated. The General even dragged along his little demon nephew, who turned out to be a surprisingly good tsungi hornist. Zuko knew all the General's favorite songs, as did Jee, so they could play together without having to exchange words. It was oddly pleasant.

After a few weeks, however, Zuko seemed to decide that he hated fun and stopped showing up to music night. Jee went back to ignoring him. If only Zuko had done him the same courtesy, life on board could have been quite bearable.

 

* * *

  
 __  
 **Entry in the captain's log book of the light patrol cruiser Yuan**    


_Sixth year of Suiseirei Era, seventh month, day 16._

_On course to pass Chameleon Bay tomorrow. Will be giving it a wide berth because of unconfirmed reports about a fleet of Water ships patrolling in the vicinity. Weather still good. No incidents and nothing of note, save for observation from pikeman Shi that Prince Zuko has not said "Avatar" even once today and must be coming down with something. We can only hope._

_The crew wants to throw a party to commemorate the second anniversary of our departure from the Fire Nation, but General Iroh has forbidden any and all celebrations. He does think that the ship needs more "beauty and cheer" and wishes to make port so he can go shopping. Stores of rice and dried fruit have been low since the minor rat plague we had two weeks ago, so we will lay anchor at the first colonial port we pass._

_  
_

* * *

  
Jee wasn't sure if his ship needed any additional beauty or cheer. It was sadly lacking in beauty, that was true; over half of the men were downright old, and most of the handful of younger ones hadn't ended up stuck on the Yuan because of their pretty faces. Zuko actually wasn't bad, in profile and from his good side, but he seemed to go out of his way to scrunch his face up in the ugliest expressions he could manage.

Not that they really needed beauty on board. Cheer was more important to morale, but there was already plenty of cheer, in Jee's opinion. Maybe even a little too much.

"So I said, 'Would you like to blow my tsungi horn?', and he..."

Jee slammed his hand down flat on the main table of the mess room, cutting Lei off in mid-sentence. "One more tsungi horn joke out of you and I'm banning you from music night for a month.  _Enough_."

The helmsman pulled a face and took a very grumpy sip from his mug of paint stripper. It seemed to cheer him up immediately. He turned to Jee and held up a not very steady fin ger.

"Wait, sir. You'll love this one. It's about  _him_."

Jee sighed. He held out his own mug to the left, and felt it grow heavier as either his first mate, Haisu, or Cook refilled it. "No. Shut up. Not one more tsungi horn joke, even if it's about Zuko."

Lei's eyes widened, and his finger came up again. He shook it in Jee's face in what he probably thought was a threatening manner. "You said his name, sir! You'll make him sneeze and he'll be mad. Madder."

Jee resisted the urge to blow a lick of flame at the finger. Agni, what had possessed him to bring Lei on board? Surely he could have found a better piece of drunken scum floating around in the royal harbor.

"Oh, not that again," Shi interjected from somewhere behind Haisu. "He doesn't sneeze when you say his name."

Haisu nodded sagely. "If people sneezed whenever someone says their name, the Avatar would come over here and make the prince cut it out already."

Jee snickered, but Lei's stupid finger was waving in the air again, this time poking dangerously close to Haisu's right eye.

"You can't say that word either! It summons him! I'm telling you, he  _hears_  it even when I'm up on the bridge and he's down in the hold, he hears it and..."

"Shut up," Jee snapped. "He doesn't. Avatar, Avatar."

"Lieutenant!"

Dead silence fell around the table. Jee closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and looked over his shoulder. He focused on the lintel over the door instead of on Zuko's nasty face. At least the lintel wasn't glowering at him.

"Yes, sir?" He put extra effort into sounding uninterested. He'd been enjoying his break, and if Zuko had anything he wanted to rant about, he'd just have to bother someone who was on watch.

"Straighten out this ship," the brat said. There was a tiny, peculiar note of panic in his voice, and it made Jee sit up straight and take a closer look at him. Zuko was in his sleeping robe. He looked mussed and angry. "The lookout just spotted Zhao's ship. He'll be here in ten minutes."

Jee swallowed a curse. He hated Zhao with a passion he rarely reserved for any superior officer, no matter how repugnant. Zuko didn't even come close. They'd run into Zhao's ship no less than eight times over the past two years, and Jee was beginning to think that the miserable bastard followed them around on purpose, just because he enjoyed wiping his filthy boots on Jee's deck and gloating at him about how low he'd fallen while Zhao kept climbing the ranks.

Actually, Zhao mostly seemed to be jumping on their backs at every opportunity because he loved baiting Zuko. He rarely spared Jee more than a supercilious greeting and a nasty little smile or two. But that didn't mean he couldn't take it personally.

"Yes, sir," Jee said, but Zuko had already disappeared, probably to his cabin to put on his armor. Raised voices and running feet sounded on deck. Cook knew the drill, and he was already gathering the mugs with one hand and wiping down the table with his apron.

"Haisu, Shi, get this drunken idiot into his cabin and make sure he stays there," Jee ordered, pointing at Lei. "Find Bao and Lin Wei as well. I want all five of you invisible for however long this takes. Haisu, you're babysitting."

They couldn't leave anyone or anything in view that might indicate weakness, because Zhao would notice and twist it into something he could mock Zuko, Jee, or the whole crew for. He always found  _something_ , of course, but Jee rather shared Zuko's desire not to give Zhao more ammunition than they could help. Lei was too drunk to leave in sight, and Shi, Bao and Lin Wei were the youngest of the crew after Zuko. None of them were very thick-skinned, and they looked it. Jee preferred not to expose his more vulnerable crew members to Zhao at all. Most of the time, though, Zuko succeeded in drawing nearly all of Zhao's fire without e ven trying. It was unsettling. Not that Jee didn't understand the urge to poke Zuko with a stick until his bald head popped; he felt it himself all the time. But something about the blatant, almost giddy delight that Zhao took in needling Zuko struck Jee as simply perverse.

But that was the way things were, and they wouldn't change until Zuko grew up a bit and learned to let mockery go over his head like the rest of them. All Jee could do now was get his ship in order. Haisu and Shi were pulling a protesting Lei out of his chair, and Cook had disappeared to the galley with the mugs and bottles. Jee stamped out of the room to take charge of the chaos outside. There was still time to clear the deck and corridors of all ropes, loose pieces of equipment, obvious coal stains, and people who didn't look their best, but they were cutting it close already.

Only moments before Zhao's much taller ship drew up alongside them, Zuko finally reappeared. He still looked flushed and queasy, and he was fumbling with the left-hand ties of his shoulder guard as he walked. The right-hand ties were tangled in a hasty and inelegant knot. Jee was still so preoccupied with the need to straighten things out that he didn't even think before catching Zuko's arm and wrenching it up so he could reach the ties.

"Hold still," he snapped. "Sir."

Zuko did hold still, but only for a moment. Then the shock of being manhandled seemed to wear off, and he jerked on his arm while shooting Jee an impossibly filthy glare. "Don't touch me!"

Jee ignored him, pulled at the left set of ties until they looked tidy, and moved to Zuko's other side to correct the right-hand knots. Zuko tried to hit him in the gut with his elbow, but it wasn't a very effective angle.

"Get  _off_ of me!"

"I'm helping you," Jee grunted, not letting go.

"I don't need your help!"

"Lieutenant," said the General, suddenly appearing right next to them. "Calm  _down._  Thank you. I'll take it from here."

He inserted himself between Jee and Zuko without waiting for either of them to react. Jee had to take a step back to avoid bumping into the General's ample backside, and he growled and threw up his hands in frustration. Alright, maybe he'd been a little grabby there, but he'd been trying to help. Ungrateful little shit. He glared at Zuko, but the brat only had eyes for his uncle.

"Lieutenant Jee meant well, Prince Zuko. We are all just a little nervous." The General picked up the shoulder straps Jee had dropped and began tying them deftly. Zuko turned towards him, hunching in on himself. The General whispered something.. Zuko gave him a nod, lifted his chin, and squared his shoulders. He locked his legs so that he wouldn't stumble when the heavy gang plank of Zhao's ship crashed down and made the deck shake.

As Jee assumed a similar stance, he felt a brief, mad impulse to go stand in front of Zuko. The brat looked  _small_. It didn't feel right to put a half-grown man-child in front and hide all the adults in the back when someone like Zhao came calling. Most of the time Zhao was only infuriatingly rude in a polite way, but he could turn cruel and downright brutal without the slightest of warnings.

Of course, sometimes he preferred to be openly instead of politely rude. The first time they'd run into him had been just after Zuko's bandage came off, when the scar was still a puffy mess of lurid colors. The first words out of Zhao's mouth had been "My, it looks even more ghastly than the day you got it".

When Zhao came striding down the gangplank, it was with his usual swagger, but his face was mostly expressionless. Jee watched as he exchanged bows and greetings with Zuko and the General. He wasn't raising his voice so that everyone on deck would be able to hear it, like he tended to do when voicing some particularly cutting insult, and he didn't try to loom over Zuko or leer at him. He just took a scroll from one of his guards, unrolled it, and held it up. It looked like a wanted poster. Jee couldn't make out the face on it from this distance, but Zuko and the General both glanced at it and shook their heads immediately.

When Zuko still wasn't showing any signs of anger after at least another minute of conversation, Jee began to relax. Apparently, this wasn't one of the social calls Zhao was so fond of. He had some sort of actual, official, pressing affair to discuss that had nothing to do with pestering people who were just sailing around and minding their own business. Hopefully that meant he wouldn't stay long, and that he'd refrain from winding Zuko up into a little ball of impotent rage, which the brat would be taking out Jee and the rest of the crew for days afterward.

"Lieutenant!" Zuko called.

Rhino balls. Jee had been hoping he'd be kept out of it this time. He walked over to the little group, trying not to tense up visibly, but Zhao barely glanced at him.

Zuko handed him the poster. It depicted a shaggy-headed and not incredibly sharp-looking fellow. "This is Chey the Deserter. He abandoned his position in our army almost a year ago. He's still on the run, and someone saw him in Hokkyo ten days ago."

Damn it all. They'd made port in Hokkyo nine days ago.

"We need to make sure he isn't hiding anywhere on board," Zuko went on. He was clearly taking it seriously, but then, he took everything seriously. The fact that Zhao seemed to be doing the same was more alarming. "Have our firebenders escort Captain Zhao's men while they search the ship. The fugitive is extremely dangerous."

Jee frowned. He'd never heard of any Army deserters who weren't tracked down and dealt with in a matter of days, besides Admiral Jeong Jeong, of course. Jee was about as eager to let Zhao's men rummage through the Yuan as he was to let Zhao rummage through the contents of his underclothes, but the idea of this desperate outlaw hiding out somewhere on his ship was even less appealing.

"Yes, sir." He nodded, rolled up the poster and cast a look around the deck to see which of their benders was already in earshot.

Two dozen of Zhao's firebenders were crawling all over the Yuan in minutes. Jee remained on deck and tried to ignore them. The General, bless him, had begun distracting Zhao with some kind of rambling story that involved expansive arm gestures and tiny smoke effects from his mouth and fingers. Judging from the look on Zhao's face, it was about tea, and monumentally uninteresting.

Zhao was glaring over the General's head to where Zuko was standing. He was obviously eager to get in a brief round of prince-baiting now that his official business was being handled, but the General was an immovable obstacle when he chose to be one. Zuko had removed himself from Zhao's immediate vicinity and taken several paces towards Jee. His eyes were glued on a flock of sparrow-gulls that was conveniently flying in a direction opposite to that where Zhao stood milling about. That was a rather good idea and Jee would have liked to copy it, but it was his job to keep an eye on any threats to his ship's commander, and Zhao was definitely that.

The General babbled on, and the corners of Zhao's mouth twisted further in steadily building annoyance. His narrowed eyes were now going from Zuko to Jee and back again. Jee realized he was standing exactly where Zhao wanted to be standing, almost right next to Zuko, and barely held back a grin. The obnoxious bastard was  _jealous_.

Time to rub it in. Jee tugged part of his left sleeve out of its brace, pulled out a small bag, and warmed it with a quick burst of heat from his palm. The sharp, spicy smell of fire flakes filled the air. They were much better when eaten fresh at festivals, but Cook's recipe wasn't half bad.

Jee took a step closer to Zuko and held out the bag. "Fire flake, sir?"

Zuko shot the bag and Jee's face a suspicious look, but he reached out almost at once and plucked up a few steaming flakes. He didn't say anything. That didn't bother Jee; he'd decided years ago that the brat was probably just allergic to expressions of gratitude or appreciation. Besides, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Zhao's face starting to purple rather beautifully. That was more than reward enough for sacrificing part of his evening snack to the brat prince.

Zuko might have an absolutely boundless talent for making Jee's life miserable, but whenever Zhao came calling, Jee was always reminded that things could be so much worse. His two years on Zhao's ship had been far beyond miserable and down into absolutely hellish. There hadn't even been much camaraderie among the crew that could have eased the weight of Zhao's relentless lack of basic humanity. Zhao had come down savagely on any attempt at levity that sounded as if it might be at his expense.

The one time they'd succeeded in making a laughing stock of him had also ended badly, but it was glorious while it lasted. It had started when one of the sailors made up a dirty poem that told the absolutely untrue story of how Captain Zhao had once tried to dishonor a Water woman, who had taken out a whalebone knife, cut his balls clean off, and made them into barbarian soup. Jee and a few other musically inclined crew members had ended up rewriting the poem to fit the tune of "The Girls from Ba Sing Se", and that had turned out to be a stroke of absolute brilliance. Every person in the world from the Fire Lord to the lowest fish-munching Water savage knew that particular melody, and in no time, the ditty was all over every Earth Kingdom port. Eventually, inevitably, Zhao heard it somewhere while on business off the ship. The face he'd been wearing when he came storming up the gang plank right afterward wa s burned into Jee's mind as thoroughly as if it had been done with hot irons.

It had been beautiful for a precious few seconds. But Zhao had rounded on Jee at once, probably because he was the only one on board who was both a musician and a known troublemaker. Since Zhao was obviously interested in violence rather than talk, Jee had assumed a dueling stance and waited for Zhao's forearm to hit his. Zhao had punched him in the face instead.

The scene had been followed by a month of total isolation in the brig and a discharge for bad conduct as soon as the ship returned to the Fire Nation. But the considerable shame of that had been nothing,  _nothing_  compared to being beaten like a common dog in front of half of the ship. Firebenders settled their disputes through proper duels, not fisticuffs. Jee was not only a bender but also a warrior. Zhao couldn't have heaped more insult and dishonor on him if he'd tried.

He never should have stopped spreading th at song around. Why hadn't he taken advantage of his discharge to get the whole Fire Nation to sing it as well? Maybe it was time to breathe life into his most popular creation again. And there was no time like the present.

Jee began to hum, just loudly enough that the sound would carry to where the General and Zhao were standing. The General would just think it was "The Girls From Ba Sing Se". And if Zhao tried to shut Jee up, he'd end up dropping the topic of his perceived lack of balls right at the feet of the Dragon of the West and Prince Zuko.

"Hmm hmm hmmmm.... The balls of Captain Zhao..."

Zuko froze with his hand in the bag of fire flakes and stared at Jee as if he had two heads. Jee quickly went back to humming instead of singing, looking away to hide his grin. Perhaps he should try teaching the song to the brat one day. It might make him a little less nervous of Zhao.

The idea of teaching  _Zuko_  anything was a little absurd, in a sad way. As if the brat would condescend to learn anything at all from a lowly commoner like Jee.

Still, sometimes Jee wished he could just walk up to Zuko, show him what he was doing wrong, explain how it could be fixed, and have him  _accept_  the help in the spirit it was given. He wasn't going to try it when Zuko would just glower and snap at him, though. Normal glowering and snapping was just very annoying. But there was a deeply unsettling gleam of distrust and  _fear_  in the brat's eyes whenever people tried to offer him assistance, and Jee didn't want that look directed at him. It hurt in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on.

His thoughts were interrupted by an agitated shout from the doorway.

"Sir! Sir! The rhinos!"

It was Shi, looking flustered and absolutely furious. He ran straight up to them and didn't even seem to notice Zhao. Jee opened his mouth to tell the idiot to get the  _hell_  back inside -and where was Haisu, damn it? Jee relied on that man- and immediately choked on a fire flake.

Zuko ran right over him while he was still busy clearing his throat.

"What about the rhinos?"

Shi barely hesitated before addressing Zuko instead of Jee. He was panting a little, as if he'd been running up the stairs. "Sir, they're in the rhino hold! I keep telling them there's no fugitives there because the rhinos would crush them, but they won't listen, and they made the rhinos mad and one of them gave a little nip and then they  _burned_  it! On the snout!"

If Zhao's goons had really gone poking around among their komodo rhinos, Jee wasn't surprised they'd gotten a little nip or three. Rhinos liked very few humans at all. It made them rather inconvenient means of transport; they could be persuaded to carry people they didn't care for, but only when the person doing the steering was someone they did like, and even that trick only seemed to work on a case-by-case basis. Of all the people on the Yuan, the only ones who could approach the rhinos without having to fear for their extremities were Shi, two of the other pikemen, and oddly enough, Zuko. The General said his nephew was really very good with animals. Jee thought it was more likely that the stubborn and evil-tempered monsters simply recognized Zuko as a kindred spirit.

Shi was the rhinos' main hostler, so it only made sense that he got angry when his animals were harmed. The absolutely murderous expression that slammed over Zuko's face was a bit more surprising. The brat rounded on Zhao and jabbed him, actually  _jabbed_  him, in the chest with two fingers.

"Are you stupid? Tell your people to get out of my hold! If they don't know how to handle a rhino, they don't belong there!"

Zhao looked down at the fingers and sighed. "Prince Zuko," he began, slowly and clearly, as if talking to a five-year-old. "They are just beasts. You are young, so perhaps you cannot grasp that capturing a traitor to the Fire Nation is more important than keeping your pets happy. If animal suffering upsets you, perhaps you should go to your room until we're finished."

Zuko snarled and jabbed Zhao's breastplate again. Jee winced, but Zhao didn't retaliate; he still looked somewhere between indulgent and exasperated.

"Fine!" Zuko snapped, whirling around. "I'll flush them out of there myself!" The amount of indignation in his voice was astounding. Jee wondered if Zuko would get this angry if Zhao's goons had burned one of his human crew members instead of one of the evil monsters.

"Prince Zuko, I'm sure it was just a small accident," the General began, but he might as well have tried to reason with the rhinos. Zuko ducked out of his uncle's reach and stormed into the superstructure, Shi right on his heels. The sound of their feet thundering down the metal stairway into the hold sounded very ominous. The General was obviously thinking the same thing, because he mumbled a quick “Excuse me" at Zhao and hurried after Zuko.

"Ah, children," Zhao drawled, looking at the door Zuko and the General had disappeared through.

With a stab of real panic, Jee realized that the royals had just left him alone with Zhao. He tried to stare very hard at Zuko's flock of sparrow-gulls, and prayed that Zhao wouldn't notice him if he remained completely immobile. That sometimes worked on moose-lions.

Zhao's footsteps came up behind him almost at once.

"Lieutenant. Such a pleasure. We haven't had an opportunity to talk since you were discharged from my ship."

"A pleasure," Jee repeated, taking care not to put any sort of intonation whatsoever in the word. If Zhao wanted to rile him up, he'd have to work for it.

Zhao smiled, relaxed his stance, and began to make a slow full body turn. His eyes seemed to linger over every inch of the Yuan, every bolt on the deck and every scratch on the plating and the walls. It made Jee's skin crawl.

"I do like your ship, Lieutenant. It's very quaint. And there is something to be said for vessels in modest sizes."

...He wasn't about to burden his brain trying to think about that. Zhao was infuriating enough when Jee wasn't aware of every single different insult that the bastard worked into his words.

"She's an excellent ship."

Zhao nodded. "It's good that you're content with your lot. Seeing as your quest is impossible, you'll probably be here for the rest of your life." He gestured towards the Yuan's superstructure without looking at it, as if the ship was too embarrassing to even glance at. Jee glowered at the hand. Even the way Zhao  _moved_  offended him.

"Prince Zuko would disagree. He's confident we'll succeed." Prince Zuko was also delusional, but Jee would burn his own eyes out before saying a single bad word about the brat prince to Zhao. Right now, Zhao was the enemy and Zuko was on Jee's team, after a fashion.

"Prince Zuko. Ah, yes. It's good to see that you two seem to be getting along better than you used to." Zhao's smile widened, and Jee tensed. "But perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. He has grown a bit. He's rather your favorite size now, isn't he?"

Jee felt his mouth drop open before he could catch himself. Oh, _Agni_ , that was beyond disgusting.

Alright, he'd thought about it. Who was he supposed to fantasize about, on a ship full of old people like himself? He'd thought about it rather more times than he cared to admit, maybe. But never for longer than two seconds. Zuko was a  _child_. It was true that Jee liked his partners a good deal younger than he was, and he still cursed the day that he'd let Zhao find out anything at all about his preferences, but that didn't mean he was one of those degenerates who preyed on ship boys and anyone else too small and weedy to fight him off.

Jee enjoyed youth as much as any other man. But most of all, he wanted to feel the warm rush of satisfaction he felt when a body moving under his hands suddenly  _got_  it - when someone figured out how to breathe with him and keep a rhythm, realized he could trust Jee enough to just shift and roll with the slightest nudge of his fingers, without thinking. Jee liked to feel people change and  _learn_ , and the knowledge that he was the one who had brought it about, and that was all there was to it.

Zhao was still grinning at him. Jee really didn't want to dignify this particular insinuation with an answer, but if he said nothing, Zhao would just assume that he'd hit a nerve. Jee glowered at him and tried to make it obvious from his expression that he thought Zhao was an affront to all living creatures. On a whim, he decided to let some smoke escape from his fists as a warning.

"That is disgusting,  _sir_ , and I 'll take it as an insult to my honor if you suggest it again."

Zhao smiled wider, and Jee knew he'd made a mistake somehow. "Ah, yes. Of course an honorable man like you has standards, Lieutenant. Disgusting indeed. But really, if you bend him over, you don't have to look at that hideous face. Or perhaps you can put a helmet on him."

Jee gaped at him, absolutely speechless. He didn't have to concentrate to make his fists smoke anymore, but Zhao just kept talking. "It's really quite a shame. He used to be much better looking, back when I used to visit the palace. Very handsome lad."

"I wouldn't know," Jee growled.

"You don't?" Zhao paused, and then his oily smile suddenly took on a very, very cruel quality. "You don't know how he was injured, lieutenant?"

"No. We weren't told, and my crew isn't interested in gossip." That was quite possibly the biggest lie Jee had ever uttered in his life, and from the glint of victory in Zhao's eyes, he knew it.

"Ah, of course you weren't told. If I had done what he did, I certainly wouldn't want my subordinates to know. It was a shameful affair. He wouldn't have gotten burned at all if he hadn't been so incompetent. Weakness and cowardice are so hard to watch, and one expects better from a prince. If he'd even just refrained from  _begging_  and  _crying_ , but..." He trailed off. "He dishonored himself completely. Irredeemably, I'm afraid."

Jee had to work not to roll his eyes. Did Zhao really believe he could make anyone think differently about Zuko with such vague and completely ludicrous insinuations? Perhaps Jee knew next to nothing about where the brat came from or what went on in his head, but you learned a thing or two about a person's character during two years on vast and dangerous seas. Whatever else was wrong with Zuko, he was tough as nails, and absolutely fearless in times of crisis. Jee had never seen him shed a single tear, and the idea of him  _begging_... The rhinos would sing harmonies before Zuko ever begged for anything.

He knew it was all hogwash, but didn't mean he was going to let it slide. Jee turned so he was facing Zhao fully and took a long and very deliberate step forward into the man's personal space. Zhao's sneer evaporated instantly. The one nice thing about him was that he was so easy to anger; if you were a lowly subordinate like Jee, all it took was one gesture of clear and open defiance.

"Stop spouting filthy lies about  _my_  commander on  _my_  ship, or I'll shut you up myself."

Zhao was nearly spitting in Jee's face when he answered, but that was hardly the worst insult he'd ever inflicted on him. "Take my word for it, Lieutenant. Your high-born  _commander_  put himself exactly down on your level, and that's where he's going to stay." He sneered and drew away from Jee, as if he were contagious. "I'm surprised you're not rutting with him yet. You're the best he can get, and he's the closest  _you_  will ever come again to touching anything that still carries the slightest whiff of nobility to it. But maybe he just needs a little more time. He was always slow."

Jee bared his teeth, making sure Zhao could see the sparks in his mouth. Perhaps the bastard had forgotten that Jee had a short temper of his own, and that he had plenty of bending skill even if he lacked Zhao's raw power. " _Pushing it_ , sir."

Zhao's scowl darkened, but before he could form a retort, one of his own firebenders appeared at his elbow.

"There's no sign of the fugitive, sir."

"Fine," Zhao snarled, and the man leaned backwards so quickly that he almost seemed to lose his balance. "Take everyone back to ship. Prince Zuko and his men have important duties to fulfill, and we mustn't waste their valuable time."

Jee almost said something about what else Zhao was wasting. He contained it, but Zhao seemed to read his mind somehow and got in his face again.

"Make your move soon, Lieutenant. You're gray already. And that at your age. You don't want to become so ugly that even your grotesque little  _commander_  won't want you."

"Turned you down, did he?" It was out before Jee could even start thinking.

The fury that suddenly twisted Zhao's whole face was gone again almost the moment it appeared. But there was something so fierce about it, something so out of proportion with the jibe, that it came down on Jee's own anger like a wave of icy polar water.

No. That piece of rhino dung couldn't actually have tried to...

Zhao glanced at something over Jee's shoulder, and his smile returned. It was absolutely savage.

"I don't discuss my private affairs. But take it from me, Lieutenant." He raised his voice. "Prince Zuko looked  _perfect_  when he was on his knees. Like he was born to it."

Jee punched him. At least, he tried to, but his right arm was grabbed mid-swing and jerked to the side with enough force to make his shoulder  _scream_. He caught a flash of a striped white face mask -one of Zhao's guards, of course, they'd have come closer as soon as Jee approached their captain,  _stupid_ \- as he stopped resisting and rolled with the pull on his arm. It was that or dislocate something. He threw out his other arm just in time to break his fall and avoid crashing face first onto the deck.

The weight of another guard came down on him, hard, and his head was suddenly yanked up by the hair - Agni, that  _hurt_. The deck receded all by itself and he  _knew_  what was coming, but one of his arms was stuck under him and the other was still being twisted backwards. He couldn't grab, couldn't spit flame, couldn't kick, couldn't do anything except watch the deck approach again, prepare for the familiar but horrible sensation of his nose breaking, and try to at least not pass out from the shock.

But instead of pain, there came a furious shout and the roar of flames above. Close, less than an arm's length above his head, but just too far away to be dangerous, and not that there was anything he could do in this position anyway. But the weight on his back and the hand in his hair abruptly disappeared, and then only heat was slamming into Jee's back.

He tensed and prepared to roll away rather than get up, but when he turned his head to the side, he saw Zhao's boots standing right in front of him. Just in reach,  _yes_ , the stupid bastard had actually stayed in reach. He braced his arms and concentrated on pumping chi down towards his feet. Zhao was tall and heavy, but a two-legged kick boosted by some flame would be enough to sweep his feet right out from under him. Jee was far too old for bending acrobatics and spinning his whole body on his hands would probably pop his shoulder for real, but it would be worth it.

He was just about to heave his legs off the deck when he felt another burst of flame shoot over his back, too high to see more of it a fierce yellow glow. Zhao had to take a step backwards to deflect it. The fire was followed immediately by a whoosh of displaced air, and then Jee's vision was blocked by a new pair of boots. They were much smaller and pointed away from him, towards Zhao.

"GET OFF OF MY SHIP!"

Zuko. Jee cringed and shut his eyes as ripple of pure, bitter shame ran down his spine. Of course, of  _course_  Zuko had been standing right there, it had been so obvious just from the look on Zhao's face. Jee had been too busy mouthing off like a perfect idiot to notice that his own commander had come up right behind him. Stupid, stupid,  _useless_.

"Ah, Prince Zuko. If you're finished cuddling your rhinos, I believe your sheepdog here also needs some petting." Zhao didn't sound very smug anymore.

Jee growled. He pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the popping of his knees and the ache in his shoulder, and looked around to take stock of the situation. Zhao, Zuko, one firebender guard standing up, one down but also moving to get up. There were no others anywhere near them, but he could hear the sound of many running feet coming up the stairs to the deck. The General was nowhere in sight. Jee kept his eyes on the two guards but didn't lift his hands. Now that he was no longer getting his face ground into his own deck, fighting sounded like a much less attractive option.

He glanced over his shoulder. Zuko was in a bending stance, but he wasn't making the proper challenging gesture with his left hand, and Zhao didn't look as if he was about to launch an attack. He looked livid, though.

"LEAVE!" Zuko roared. Jee couldn't see his face from this angle, but something told him that he didn't really want to know what the brat looked like right now.

Zhao tried to smile, but it looked more like he wanted to rip Zuko's head off. He straightened, brought his hands together, and gave Zuko every last inch of the deep bow that royalty was entitled to.

"Certainly, my Prince. We'll remove ourselves from your space now. Thank you for your forbearance."

Jee didn't take his eyes off Zhao's retreating figure until he and every last one of his men were back on their own ship, and he relaxed only after they'd pulled up their gang plank, started their engines, and were floating out of sight behind the Yuan's tower.

When he turned to Zuko, he saw that the brat was standing more or less where Zhao had left him. The fighting stance was gone. He was still looking away from Jee, though, and his whole posture radiated such a phenomenal amount of tension that he looked as if the breeze that was just picking up might be enough to snap him in two.

"Thank you, sir," Jee said to the back of Zuko's head. He meant it. The brat had probably just defended him for the same reason he'd defended his rhinos, but Jee was still grateful. He'd be standing here with a broken face if Zuko hadn't knocked that guard off his back.

Zuko didn't react. The absolute silence was rather alarming, and Jee let his eyes roam around the deck again in search of the only person who had a small chance of stopping whatever was brewing inside the brat.

Still no sign of him. Haisu was standing a few paces away, though, looking extremely sheepish and guilty. He was probably expecting Jee to chew him out for letting Shi escape. That would have to wait until later.

"Get the General," Jee mouthed. Haisu nodded back and disappeared into the hold again.

"What did he tell you?" Zuko snapped abruptly, without turning around. He still sounded furious and most definitely embarrassed, but something hysterical was bubbling just under the anger. There would be shouting soon.

The prospect didn't annoy Jee half as much as it usually would. He rather wanted to shout himself.

"Just lies, sir." He tried to sound convinced.

Apparently, he'd failed, because Zuko whirled around. His face was a picture of pure fury, but Jee had seen that particular expression on him so often that it had nearly lost all meaning. Jee resisted the urge to smile in relief. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but this was familiar enough.

"Tell me what he  _said_. He was talking about this, wasn't he!?" Zuko didn't point at his face, but he didn't have to.

Jee nodded. If he denied it, Zuko wouldn't believe him anyway.

“Yes, sir. But it was all lies." He thought for a moment, trying to find the right thing to say. “I know you'd never disgrace yourself the way he said you did."

He tried to make it sound reassuring, because he thought he had some notion of what the brat was going through right now. Accusations of dishonor hurt no matter the circumstances. To have them delivered behind one's back to a relentlessly disobedient and unfriendly subordinate, though... Zuko probably thought Jee was going to spread Zhao's drivel around the mess room first chance he got.

Not that he actually expected Zuko to believe any reassurances that came out of  _his_  mouth. Zuko never believed him on anything. Still, the brat had done him a good turn just now, and Jee felt like he had to make the effort. He kept his eyes on Zuko's face and prayed he'd see at least a small glimmer of acknowledgment.

Zuko maintained his furious glare. A few seconds went by and Jee began to hope, but then Zuko bared his sharp little teeth and opened his mouth. Jee just sighed very quietly and braced for impact.

It didn't come.

Zuko's mask of complete outrage wobbled, crumpled  _horribly_ , and for one hair-raising second, there was no doubt at all in Jee's mind that the brat was going to burst into tears right there and then.

But the nightmarish sight vanished as if it had been no more than a spirit trick, and all of a sudden Zuko was only a finger's length away from Jee's nose and  _snarling_  like a rabid tigerdillo. If Jee's reflexes had been even a little slower, Zuko's breath would have cooked his face right off of his skull.

“Repeat one word of this, and I will  _kill_  you."

And then he was gone, disappearing from Jee's line of vision before Jee had even began to understand the words. He moved from right there to the door of the superstructure so fast that he might as well have airbended himself, and disappeared into the darkness of the ship.

Jee gaped at the empty doorway. He knew he was disappointed, insulted, and far beyond angry, but his mind refused to settle down long enough for the emotions to actually take hold. That unbelievable little  _monster_...

It felt like hours later when a warm, steady presence materialized at his side.

“Lieutenant? Is everything all right?"

Jee looked down. It was the General, finally. Much too late, but Jee was so ridiculously glad to see the old man and the  _normalcy_  he brought that he didn't really care. He quickly straightened up and tried to make his face settle back into a more normal frown.

It seemed to be good enough for the General. He patted Jee's arm reassuringly.

"My apologies for leaving you waiting so long, Lieutenant. The situation in the rhino hold was a bit of a muddle. But no one is hurt, and it seems the poor animal that was injured will recover." He sounded dreadfully tired. "Do I hear a rumor that you almost hit Captain Zhao?"

Jee stood up a bit straighter. "I'm afraid so, sir."

"Why, if I may ask?"

"He was speaking ill of Prince Zuko." He couldn't believe he'd spoken up for the little shit. He couldn't believe it.

The General gave him a very doubtful look. "You speak ill of Prince Zuko. Frequently."

It took Jee a few moment s to remember exactly why he'd decided not to let Zhao's slights against the brat slide. The old man would probably detect any untruths. He also wouldn't take kindly to being told that his beloved nephew was an ungrateful, crazy beast from the underworld that had shape-shifted into human form and had been fooling him for all these years.

"Not in the way Zha... Captain Zhao was doing, sir. He doesn't know the prince. He doesn't know what he's talking about," Jee ground out.

"Neither do you," the General sighed. "And neither do I, I'm afraid. Where is my nephew?"

Jee stared, puzzled. "He already went inside, sir."

"Very well. I'll go speak with him." Suddenly the General smiled, and Jee felt better right away. The old man had a rare gift for pulling everyone around him into his own mood completely unintentionally. It worked even on a sourpuss like Jee.

"I can't say I approve of inflicting violence on esteemed officers of the Fire Navy, Lieutenant. But thank you for defending Zuko in my stead. I'm very glad he has you to rely on."

Then he sighed again, although he didn't look quite as defeated as before. "I assume Zuko didn't appreciate your assistance, though. He must have been very cross with you. My apologies for his behavior."

“It's all right, sir," Jee said, but he must have pulled some kind of face, because the General gave him a tiny frown that was half exasperation and half rebuke. Jee had seen it before often enough to recognize it. The General turned it on anyone who complained about Zuko, even when the complaints were justified.

"Remember that Zuko is young, Lieutenant, and not yet very good at figuring out for himself how those around him should be treated. He mostly reflects back what others show him."

That was a nice excuse. Jee resolved to use it for himself the next time Zuko accused him of disrespect.

 

* * *

  
 __  
 **Various crude and inexpert drawings on the door of the latrines**    


_A rhino and Captain Zhao in a compromising position_  
A rhino and Captain Zhao in another compromising position  
Captain Zhao doing something unspeakable with a tsungi horn  
Prince Zuko carrying Lieutenant Jee in his arms, one foot on a fallen Captain Zhao's head 

__  
**Written with a sooty finger across the drawings**    


_For the last time, that is not what happened._

_I gave you lot permission to draw on this one door because you'll cover my whole ship in graffiti otherwise. If you're just going to abuse my generosity to spread lies and rhino pornography, I'll withdraw it entirely. One warning only. Keep in mind that a person who isn't of age also has to use this room._

_Lieutenant Jee_

__  
**Unsigned, written under Lieutenant Jee's note**    


_I'm pretty sure he drew at least one of those pictures, sir._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added 2/1/2012: the [full lyrics](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7698384/2/The_Balls_of_Captain_Zhao#) of 'The Balls of Captain Zhao', by True Colours!


	2. In which enemy birds and monsters are vanquished

__  
  
**Note attached to Lieutenant Jee's cabin door**    


_Sir, could you please stop looking the other way whenever Prince Zuko yells at you to come over? It just makes him yell at other people instead. I know he's been shouting at you a lot more than before and I don't know why, and I'm really sorry he's being such a pain. But I don't think you're helping, and we, that is, me and everyone else except the General, are all really fed up with this. Even the rhinos are starting to get upset._

_It's possible that he isn't actually trying to antagonize you, sir. I think he might just want attention._

_Shi (and Haisu too)_

  
__  
**Paper attached to the wall of the mess room, in the handwriting of several different people**    


_Lost on the ship this week:_

_A new ink stone (Lieutenant Jee)_  
A razor (Lieutenant Jee)  
Pair of gloves (Bao)  
A wrench (Haisu)  
The spare sextant (Lei)  
One left slipper (Lieutenant Jee)  
Half of the spoons in the galley (I swear, they were gone when I came in this morning. Cook)  
A can of boot polish (Lieutenant Jee)  
Two spare pipa strings (Lieutenant Jee) 

__  
**Written at the bottom of the paper**    


_This is more than we lost in the last two months put together._

_To the indescribable moron who has taken up petty theft as a hobby: you have my full attention, and when I find you, I will whip you until you cry._

_Lieutenant Jee_

_  
_

* * *

  
They made port at a good-sized colonial town three days south of Chameleon Bay. It turned out that decent pipa strings were some sort of exotic rarity in these godforsaken parts, and Jee ended up spending a ridiculous amount of money replacing the ones that had disappeared right from his cabin. After the dirt-grubbers had taken most of his hard-earned wages, Jee returned to the ship just in time to be thrust in the middle of a completely pointless argument between Bao and Shi. Neither of them were benders, so the disagreement was being settled with a bloody fistfight rather than a civilized fire duel. When Jee stepped between them to break it up, Bao accidentally socked him in the eye.

The General walked up the gang plank moments later, back from his own shopping trip for some "beauty and cheer". He was carrying a mechanical wind-up bird.

If Jee had been paying attention, he might have found the General's beaming smile a tad alarming, but he was busy yelling. The rest of the crew on deck gave the strange bird no more than a few snickers and raised eyebrows. As soon as the General put it down on the deck so he could go make some tea, however, Zuko turned up. He gave the bird the evil eye for a few long moments and then began to circle it, from a distance, as if he expected it to pounce at him. Jee ignored the antics in favor of thinking up something disgusting that he could make Bao and Shi do.

Over the next few days, Zuko's paranoia turned out to be very regrettably justified. Not that the bird wasn't an admirable piece of workmanship. It was shaped like the hawk-penguins whose sharp beaks they had all learned to fear during their v isit to the South Pole, back in the first year of their journey. It could move. The machinery inside was so fine that the whole thing was only knee-high. People would have been tripping over it all day long if it didn't announce itself with a constant stream of absolutely infernal noise. It produced a very loud and shrill bird call, over and over, all the time. The whole crew grumbled that the bird was unnatural and that the never-ending patter of its metal feet on their metal deck reverberated through the whole ship, from the bridge to the cabins to the very bottom of the hold. It waddled with astonishing speed, just like a real hawk-penguin when it smelled fresh Fire Nation fingers. Whenever it encountered an obstacle, it kept bumping into it until its momentum turned it in a more accessible direction before waddling on to spread its cacophony elsewhere.

The General was entirely alone in his adoration of his ingenious new toy. Zuko's good eye twitched madly whenever the bird was in earshot, which was almost all the time. Jee could commiserate with the brat prince - a strange sensation if there ever was one. His own fingers wouldn't stop jerking in time with the noise, and he imagined his facial expression was now permanently stuck on "kill". The General seemed to enjoy seeing the entire ship united in _something_ for once, even if it was suffering. He only stopped winding the bird up when he was asleep.

 

* * *

  
__  
**Paper attached to the wall of the mess room**   


_  
Monthly watch schedule:_

_Morning watch, 0400 to 0800: Red team (Peng, Haisu, Sen, Lin Wei, Bao, Kang, Bai)_

_Forenoon watch, 0800 to 1200: Black team (General Iroh, Cook, Lin Ming, Lei, Cao, Jiang, Tan)_

_~~Afternoon watch~~   ~~Screaming watch~~   ~~Afternoon watch~~   ~~Screaming watch~~  Afternoon watch, 1200 to 1600: Gold team (Lieutenant Jee, Prince Zuko, Shi, Niu, Wu, Yuchi, Liao)_

_Dog watch, 1600 to 2000: Red team_

_Evening watch, 2000 to 0000: Black team (minus General Iroh)_

_Midnight watch, 0000 to 0400: Gold team (minus Prince Zuko)_

__  
**Written at the bottom of the watch schedule in a different and much more elegant hand**    


_Dear hard-working and justifiably annoyed crew. The afternoon watch may not be renamed to reflect the behavior of Lieutenant Jee and Prince Zuko. Please stop trying. I am aware that you only mean to be helpful and inspire your superior officers to treat each other with more kindness and respect, but you really are making it worse. The new watch teams will be decided by lottery in only one week. Let us have patience until then._

_General Iroh_

_  
_

* * *

  
Six days after Zhao's visit and three days after the fateful morning when his ship had been taken over by a bird, Jee was enjoying a rare moment of pure and blessed silence. The midnight watch had just ended, and with the General having gone to bed four hours earlier, the bird had mercifully lost steam and had stopped its screeching and clattering.

Jee bid his fellow watchmen a good night, left his armor in his cabin, and took off along the dark corridors in the direction of the shower room. The Yuan's showers were simple but ingenious contraptions. Water was pumped up along the ship's main boiler, and by the time it reached deck level, it was so piping hot that the non-benders on crew often complained that they were cooked like shark-lobsters every time they washed. It was still sea water, but hot sea water was sheer bliss as far as Jee was concerned. Few people in the Fire Navy appreciated just how precious on-ship plumbing really was. Jee had seen the inside of many Earth Kingdom junks and even a few captured Water Tribe sloops, and he could compare. Of course people survived in whatever way they could on the ocean, but the sheer primitiveness of those floating heaps of planks was absolutely breathtaking. Never mind their general lack of sophistication or even anything resembling engines; junks and sloops were about as comfortable as wet fish crates. They were cold and they stank. They didn't have a proper galley that allowed for proper cooking. Everyone had to sleep in sacks that dangled from the ceiling instead of in warm bunks with sheets and a mattress. The latrines were just stinking holes at the bow of the ships, right on deck, fully exposed.

There was such a thing as bearing the normal amount of discomfort that came with living at sea, and then there was crapping outside in the middle of a screaming gale with waves like liquid ice tearing the skin right from your ass. Complaining about anything and everything was one of Jee's favorite pastimes, but he knew he had it good. That was, most of the time and in comparison with most people in the world. The past week had been nothing short of horrible. First Zhao, then the thief on board, then Bao rattling half of his teeth loose, then the thrice-cursed bird, and always, non-stop, night and day, _Zuko_. At this point, five minutes in a hot shower sounded like an eternity in paradise.

Jee turned the last corner before the shower room and almost yelped when something sharp knocked him very hard and very painfully in the shin. He fell into a bending stance out of pure reflex, dropped his towel, and stared down his outstretched arm.

It was the mechanical bird. Jee stared down at it for a moment before he remembered that the shower room was on the same level as the deck, meaning there were no stairs that could stop the creature from navigating around this part of the ship. It was standing in the middle of the corridor. Its beady glass eyes were fixed on Jee's legs, which were protected only by the thin and faded cotton of his sleeping pants. He briefly, desperately wished for his boots.

Then he looked from his still-clenched fist to the bird. It was immobilized and trapped, and its only ally was snoring away in a cabin far above this corridor.

Water was running behind the door of the shower room just a few steps ahead, but whoever was in there wouldn't know a thing if Jee destroyed the bird quickly and maybe stuffed the evidence out of sight in the air duct up ahead. He wasn't likely to get another chance like this before the creature drove him to murder. The idea of destroying something the General liked didn't sit entirely well with Jee, but the old man was easily amused. He'd find another game or loud trinket to bother the rest of them with soon enough.

Decision made, Jee punched out a slow but intensely hot sheet of flame. It enveloped the bird like fiery wrapping paper, and after a moment the fire began to seep into the metal. It glowed bright red before the bird began to shrivel and collapse in on itself with a loud and almost musical sizzling noise.

Ten seconds later, it was no more than a hissing, smoking lump of scrap on the floor. The head with its staring eyes was still eerily intact.

Jee smiled down at his handiwork. Now f _that_ was how it was done. If Zuko had been trying to do this, he'd have used some flashy blast that would have made the bird and half the corridor explode in an inferno of hot, molten metal. Granted, making the bird explode would have been incredibly satisfying, but this way was much neater and more practical. It was also more difficult than any bending Zuko could hope to manage. Stupid little brat.

The water in the shower room had stopped running.

Jee turned on his heel and began to stride towards the nearest corner, trying to run without looking like he was in any hurry. He wasn't fast enough.

"Lieutenant!"

Of course. Who else. The brat prince was excused from night watches by virtue of his station and had a spacious private officer's cabin to mope around in, but he hated being comfortable and happy and well-rested, so he wandered around at all hours of the night like a crazy little insomniac.

Not that Zuko's nocturnal habits were to blame for this situation, really. Jee had been careless enough to get caught, pure and simple, and he'd just have to face t he consequences. They were hardly likely to be dramatic. Destruction of royal property was a serious crime in theory, but he was needed on this ship. At worst, he'd have to stand still and undergo Zuko's signature shouting act. Maybe he'd do some kind of demeaning task like scrubbing the latrines afterwards. The Yuan had a prison hold, but even Zuko had never actually ordered anyone to be thrown in there. He probably wanted to keep it free in case they came across the Avatar floating around in a dinghy.

Well. The sooner he got the shouting part over with, the sooner he could go to bed. Jee tried to arrange his face in a politely neutral expression, cleared his throat, and turned around.

He looked at Zuko while still in motion and almost lost his balance.

The brat was leaning out of the open door of the shower room, a long slash of shockingly white skin against the dark plating of the corridor. From the odd way he was angling his upper body, keeping everything below his navel out of sight behind the door jamb, it was obvious that he didn't have a stitch of clothing on. One bare foot curled over the door's raised threshold for balance. Most of his right leg was showing.

His mismatched yellow stare was fixed not on Jee, but on the smoking remains of his uncle's beloved bird. He was  _dripping_  wet.

The part of Jee's mind that always made him say very unwise things to the wrong people wondered if Zuko was going to step out of that doorway entirely and do his shouting act buck naked. He might. Royalty weren't shy, not after being raised with servants to dress them and wash them and probably wipe them down after nature had come calling. Not to mention that after two years on a very small ship, everyone on the crew had seen everyone else in an advanced state of undress dozens of times. Showering and shaving next to the Dragon of the West and his hissy little relative had been a little surreal in the beginning, but Jee had gotten used to much stranger things during a good two decades in the military.

All right, three seconds was already far too long to spend in contemplation of Zuko being naked. Jee tried to think of something else.

It didn't work.

Zuko still wasn't moving or speaking. Jee stared so hard it made his eyeballs hurt, and he realized with a thrill of horror that he couldn't have looked away from the brat even if ten Water savages had suddenly turned up and tried to club him over the head.

There was no end to the expanse of skin in front of him. Zuko definitely hadn't been this tall or this well-muscled the last time Jee had bothered to give him a sideways glance in the showers. Since when did the brat have calves that looked as if he could probably kick right through Jee's cabin door? Since when did he have  _shoulders_? How old could he even be, fourteen? No, he'd had a birthday not long after they left the Fire Nation, and they'd been at sea for over two years - he had to be fifteen at the very least. Almost sixteen, if he wasn't already. Unbelievable how time could fly.

Wait.

The prince actually  _was_  of fuckable age?

Zuko's head snapped up entirely without warning, as if he'd heard the thought. Jee made the mistake of looking at his face and - _holy Agni in his heaven_.

If Jee were the all-powerful Avatar, he'd have started running.

"Stop!” Zuko barked when Jee actually took a step back.

He stopped. Blinked. The brat prince had just managed to  _scare_  him into obeying an order. Oh, this was bad, but at least Zuko seemed just as surprised as Jee. He looked dumbfounded instead of completely terrifying for just a moment, and Jee quickly tore his eyes away and fixed them on a much safer point slightly to the left of Zuko's good ear.

It didn't help at all. He could feel Zuko boring a hole through his forehead and straight into his brain. He held perfectly still and tried not to think or even breathe, but his mind didn't need air to keep dwelling on the novel and frightfully tantalizing concept of Zuko being naked and so very obviously not a child anymore and  _right there_. He was close enough for Jee to distinguish his body heat from the almost oppressive warmth of the summer air that filled the corridor. Jee tried to stop sensing it, he tried as hard as he could, but it was laughably useless. He couldn't turn off his bending.

Zuko might as well have been plastered all over him. Every square inch of Jee's skin itched to get closer to the heat that was making it crawl, to touch it and rub it and  _grab_  it. He couldn't stop it. He'd have to jump overboard in order to make it stop.

Over a minute passed with no sound except for the steady plick-plock of water dripping from Zuko's long unbound hair onto the floor. Jee could barely hear it. He was breathing hard, and his ears were full of the roar of the countless small torrents of inner fire that were being fanned by so much displaced air. The energy had to be snuffed out or released soon. Neither of those things seemed likely to happen while Jee stayed rooted to the spot here to let himself be  _stared_  at, though. He had no idea why the brat prince seemed to have frozen up, but Zuko didn't look like he was about to make up his mind about how he'd make Jee suffer for the bird's demise.

It was high time to gamble. He needed to get out of here and reach the safety of his cabin, and he had to go now. Jee was far too old and experienced to lose control of any kind of inner energy, but he wouldn't be able to keep any outward signs of it from showing. The sleeping pants he was wearing didn't hide a thing, and he knew with horrifying certainty that he was about two more inappropriate thoughts away from popping wood. Agni only knew what that would earn him.

Probably swift immolation. He might do it to himself if Zuko didn't beat him to it.

He cleared his throat. Zuko started; the movement drew Jee's attention to the shoulders again, and to the biceps under the shoulders, and then he needed a moment to recall what he'd been about to say.

"It was an accident, sir. The machine surprised me.”

He knew it was a pathetic lie. No trained bender reacted to a poke in the leg by immediately hurling a fireball. The charred lump of metal at his feet looked perfectly, beautifully deliberate, and he'd been caught running away in the bargain. All he could hope for was that Zuko was as discombobulated by this standoff as Jee, and just as desperate to break it.

There was a different gleam in Zuko's eyes now, one that Jee was completely unfamiliar with. The brat could be surprisingly hard to read sometimes, on those very rare occasions when the right half of his scarred face attempted an expression that was very different from the permanent glower of the left half.

Zuko glanced over his shoulder, as if to make sure no eavesdroppers had materialized in the corridor, and nodded slowly.

"Right. An accident."

He gave the pitiful remains of the bird and the puddle of water that had gathered under his own head a long, considering frown. Jee took advantage of his distraction to watch a drop of water slide over one shoulder and down, down, down towards a nipple. The sight was beyond mesmerizing.

When the drop was just a thumb's width away from its destination, it suddenly evaporated, going from a thick pearl of liquid to not there at all in a heartbeat. Jee felt his eyes bug. The General had once demonstrated to him how to heat things up with just a look, but it was a very advanced technique that required absurd levels of concentration. The trick had been eluding him for years. Now he'd just done it, and he couldn't even go and brag to anyone about it.

Zuko's eyes shot up again, narrowing in suspicion. He raised a hand and absently rubbed the spot where the drop had sizzled out.

"Clean up this mess. I'll tell my uncle there was an accident,” he said.

It took Jee a long time to digest that. He'd been too busy noticing that Zuko had been brushing his nipple with his pinkie.

"Yes, sir," he finally managed, stunned. Of course Zuko had hated the stupid bird as much as anyone else, that had been obvious. But was he really so relieved that someone had eliminated the menace that he was prepared to lie to his  _uncle_?

Zuko gave another nod, as if he'd been reading Jee's mind again. His lopsided gaze traveled down with the movement of his head, and kept going until it stopped dead at a point just below Jee's navel.

Oh, yes. He'd forgotten he wasn't going to do that. He really should have left that drop of water alone.

The gaze  _lingered_.

Jee was overcome by a ridiculous urge to stand at attention, to suck in his stomach and square his shoulders and look as tall and impressive as possible.

But then he really thought about the impulse. He looked at the brat who despised him, the brat who treated him and all the rest of them like pieces of equipment every day, the brat who was now studying his groin as if it was some kind of amazing new toy, and his blood began to run cold.

Jee sucked in a breath and had to ball his fists to keep sparks from escaping. In a heartbeat, all of the confusion and tension and bizarre  _wonder_  of the last ten minutes coalesced into black rage.

That little  _shit_.

He could have kicked himself. When was he going to learn? He just couldn't win with these people. Thirty-eight years of being sat on and stepped on by  _nobles_  who thought they could do anything they pleased to the son of a fisherwoman. Twenty-two years in the army, being continually passed over for promotions. Finally being promoted, and then being laughed at by his new so-called peers because of his lack of knowledge, pedigree, and social graces, or because his hair looked wrong, or because he frowned too much, or just because he existed. Demoted for something that had barely been his fault at all, and being mocked even harder for it by Zhao and the hundreds of others just like him.

And here was another little Zhao-in-training, peering at Jee like he was some kind of funny curiosity. Of course Zuko got to hide himself behind a stupid doorjamb while Jee had to stand in the middle of the corridor and get ogled, unable to even turn away, because he'd been  _ordered_  to stay put. What did Zuko think Jee was? Some thing to prod and stare at and have a good laugh about later? Or a good sneer. Zuko never laughed.

Jee felt the corners of his mouth pull down in a vicious snarl. Zuko didn't even notice, because he was still pointing his ugly mug at Jee's groin as if that was a perfectly normal thing to do to a person. The brat probably thought it was his Agni-given right to play with a low-born lieutenant. Any second now, he was going to command Jee to pull down his pants so he could have a better look. Maybe he'd make Jee hop around a bit too.

_Enough._  He'd had a horrible, bad, atrocious week, in between Zhao and Zuko and that thief and that miserable bird. He'd been having a bad two years, a bad damned  _life_ , and he was done with allowing Zuko to make it worse. If Zhao was even half right about how unlikely it was that the Fire Lord would ever allow his brat to come home, they were all going to be stuck on this ship for the rest of their days. Zuko was just too stupid to give up on his Avatar, ever.

If Jee really had to spend decades more on this floating scrap heap with these  _people_ , he was going to change things around here. He wasn't going to let one little piece of noble shit continue ruining every other moment of every single day with his selfish entitlement. How exactly he was going to change things, Jee wasn't sure yet, but he could think it through later. The first thing he had to do was get himself out of the absolutely humiliating position the brat was keeping him in right now.

Jee was about to open his mouth and blurt out something, anything, whatever would make Zuko  _stop_ , maybe even something horrible like  _If you're such a big boy now, come out here and show me. Zhao says you're good._

But then Zuko shivered a little and seemed to curl up against the door jamb, as if he were trying to make himself smaller, or maybe contain something. When he ducked his head, the marked half of his face disappeared behind the metal edge.

Jee stared. Without the scarred eye warping the whole picture, the brat's face was suddenly absurdly normal, as readable as an open scroll. There was no hint of malice in the way he was staring down at Jee. No mockery. Not a shadow of a sneer. His visible, normal eye was open as wide as it would go. The slight furrow of his brow now looked like a sign of concentration rather than anger. His lips were parted, just a little, leaving no more than a hint of white teeth visible in the dim light of the corridor. There was a very obvious blush on his cheek.

He looked embarrassed, almost shy, but mostly just  _wondering_. Interested. The brat was curious. Honestly, genuinely curious, and nothing worse than that.

Jee took a deep breath. Maybe Zuko wasn't such a big boy after all. He'd have to be deaf and blind to still be completely innocent after two years among sailors, but that didn't mean he had any experience with sex beyond hearsay and his own hand. Where would he get it? Who'd want to touch him? He spent all of his time on a tiny ship full of people who spent most of their energy trying to avoid him. Zuko never accompanied the crew when they went to explore some port town's more lively district; he never seemed to leave the ship if he could help it, and really, Jee probably would have done the same if he had a face that every lowly dirt grubber felt entitled to gape at. If the General had ever smuggled any ladies of the night onto the Yuan, Jee would have heard about it.

The brat really didn't have the slightest notion of what he was doing. He was just standing there, naked, and obviously aroused, with ten different sorts of desire competing for room on his flushed face. He looked as hapless as a child with its first piece of sparklers. Did he even have the slightest idea as to how much he was giving away? How vulnerable he was making himself by stripping naked in every sense of the word? And in front of someone who was absolutely _not_ his friend, someone who had reason to wish him harm and wasn't afraid of him. He must have been an incredibly sheltered child, to come out of the Fire Nation court and still be this naive.

All the rage seemed to bleed out of Jee like muddy water running off his body, but the slow realization that rose in its place was worse. Like the dirt wasn't gone but had just gotten stuck under his skin, where he could feel but not see it, instead of washing away.

Someone was putting himself on display here, but it wasn't Jee.

He'd wanted a way to change things? A way to make Zuko just shut up and let him be? Here it was. Zuko was displaying a dozen of his tenderest, newest, most breakable places. He was even standing perfectly still so Jee could concentrate on hitting  _hard_  instead of aiming.

Jee could say  _crushing_  things to him about this. Things that would make the brat so sick with shame that he'd stay far away from Jee for a very long time - maybe forever. It would be disgustingly easy. Jee had never managed to say the right thing at the right time in his whole life, but he was a champion at finding the exact wrong thing to say, the words that would hit and hurt like a knife in the gut. He knew how to pound someone into a miserable ball of humiliation with nothing _but_ words. It had been done to him often enough. All he had to do was conjure up Zhao's voice, Zhao's ugly sneer, think of what  _he_  would say, and the words came pouring into his head fully formed and ready to leap off his tongue.

_Looks like Zhao was right about you. Did you know he wants to fuck you? I bet you want him to. How about I tell him the next time he comes calling?_

_Do you have no shame? No honor at all?_

_A descendant of Agni, offering his body up to his inferiors like that of a common whore. No wonder the Fire Lord banished you._

_I wouldn't touch you if ordered me to. You're too ugly. You disgust me._

The brat would take every word to heart, no matter how absurd it was. He just didn't have the experience to realize that whatever Jee told him about his desires wasn't necessarily the truth. Nobody would ever tell him it was all ludicrous garbage, unless he found someone he trusted enough to repeat it to. Jee could make him believe he had no one like that.

_Does your esteemed uncle know that he's raising a cocksucker?_

It would be as easy as charbroiling a rat-roach trapped in a crate. The brat would survive, of course, just like a rat-roach. If Jee understood one thing about him, it was that he was simply indestructible. But it would hurt. He'd learn a valuable lesson about this world and the sort of people that lived in it, and he'd definitely learn to leave Jee alone.

No more yelling. No more insults. No more threats. No more biting his tongue and swallowing his pride whenever the brat walked all over him. No more being woken up in the middle of the night to get ranted at about places where the Avatar might be hiding. No more having his life and sanity risked for the sake of a myth. Some well-deserved peace.

The brat looked up.

He blinked, and the curiosity on his face began to melt into confusion. He knew something had shifted - he could see the challenge on Jee's face, and he could see Jee wetting his lips.

Good. Jee wanted him to see it coming. He was no backstabber, and he always gave a sporting chance to idiots who came to him and begged for a fight. This particular idiot had been begging for a fight since the day Jee met him. He was finally going to get it, but he'd have to do without all the unfair advantages he got from his undeserved station and the General's backup. Jee tensed and slid his feet apart a little more so he could drop into a bending stance faster if things actually got physical. He kept his eyes fixed on the brat's face and waited, patiently, for the shock of realization to appear. His mouth opened as his mind replayed the words he was going to say.

But when the brat's expression did change, after a long and tense silence, it wasn't in the way Jee had expected. He pulled his mouth into a determined line, furrowed his brow in an almost comical display of concentration, and began to breathe in and out very, very slowly, all without taking his eyes off Jee's face for a second, not even to  _blink_. He looked exactly as if he was about to try out a new firebending form the General had just explained to him. Like he was going to do something new and difficult, and was determined to get it right or die trying.

The foot he'd been curling over the door's raised threshold lifted, rose, and came down again to rest flat on the plating of the corridor. He was facing Jee head on now, but in a position that was ridiculously unsuited for either attack or defense. With one foot inside and one foot outside the shower room, the threshold could easily trip him up if he tried to move. The door jamb still bisected him from shoulder to thigh. His right hip was in plain view, but he was still hiding his groin, as if there was any point to that now.

Jee watched, completely befuddled, as the brat stopped even  _breathing_  and seemed to tense every muscle in his body, still not moving, still doing absolutely nothing. At least, nothing beyond extending the tip of his tongue and running it across his upper lip. The movement was oddly, almost endearingly clumsy. It reminded Jee of the way his nieces used to grimace when they were drawing pictures in the sand outside the house.

It took Jee several very, very confusing seconds to realize that  _he_  was still licking his lips as well.

Zuko was mimicking him.

He'd cocked his bald head. He was mirroring the movements of Jee's tongue, mirroring them exactly, purposefully. He was focusing on Jee's mouth like a cat-owl keeping an eye on prey. There was a ridiculously precise quality to the way he was moving his tongue, as if he was doing his utmost to execute the movement perfectly.

As if there was any right way to lick your lips. But if there was one idiot in the whole world would assume that there was, it would be Zuko. And now he thought that Jee was showing him how to do it. There was no other explanation for whatever the hell he was trying to do there.

He thought Jee was trying to teach him.

Jee snapped his mouth shut. His teeth slammed into his tongue, hard, harder even than when Zhao had punched him years before. The pain was like a kick, or perhaps more like falling out of a dream and hitting the bed. Zuko would see the blood on his teeth if he tried to say anything now, but Jee couldn't have squeezed out a single word to save his life. Everything he'd been about to say had vanished from his mind like smoke. He didn't have the air to speak anyway. Things were constricting deep in his throat, almost down in his chest, like when he was about to vomit.

If only Zhao were here to see what Jee had almost done. He'd be so proud.

Jee  _was_  about to vomit. It took every ounce of willpower he had to force the bile back down, and he squeezed his eyes closed until they pricked and teared up, taking in great lungfuls of air through his nose and willing his throat to clear. He had to, needed to say something. He had to tell Zuko to go back inside that room, barricade that door, and not come out until Jee had had a few hours to stick his head in a bucket of cold water and remember that he was a human being.

"Lieutenant."

It was a command, a question and a plea all rolled in one. Jee opened his eyes helplessly.

Zuko hadn't moved from his position. But he was leaning forward now,  _straining_  forward so hard that the skin he was pressing against the edge of the door jamb was even paler than the rest of him. His poor cock had to be nearly crushed against the metal. His left arm was hidden, but the hand was curled into a tight, white fist on top of his head. The right hand was floating uncertainly down at his hip. He was frowning, but just a little, more in confusion than out of any kind of displeasure.

He was no longer mirroring Jee's expression, but he might as well have been.

Jee looked at the mix of desperate uncertainty and determination and  _want_  in the lopsided eyes, really looked at it, and wondered if this was what a father felt like when he found something of himself in the face of a child. He had been here before. He had been like this. He'd been exactly this naive, exactly this far away from home with no hope of returning, exactly alone enough to start doing stupid things just so he wouldn't be alone anymore. He had  _needed_ some things badly enough that he'd asked them from people who didn't care about him, with all the risks that entailed, because there was no one else to ask.

Of course Zuko still had the General. But somehow, Jee doubted that the old man had ever looked into his nephew's face and seen anything he recognized. The General and Zuko were as different as night and day. Different generations, different faces, different eyes, different personalities, different fighting styles, different likes and dislikes, different favorite foods and favorite ways to pass the time, different  _everything_. They didn't have a thing in common, except that they loved each other, even if Zuko forgot to show it from time to time. But even if the General cherished Zuko like no father had ever cherished a son of his blood, he'd never be able to provide his nephew with everything he wanted or needed, because he just wouldn't be able to guess what some of those things even were. Jee had been there a couple of times when Zuko did or said something the General honestly didn't seem to _understand_ , and the look on the old man's face in those moments had been beyond heartbreaking. On some level, he knew Zuko wasn't his and never would be.

Jee was starting to get why not understanding Zuko could be so wretchedly painful for the General.

He cleared his throat. It hurt. "Sir, I..."

"I'm not too young," Zuko blurted out. "I'll be sixteen in two months."

Ah. Well. Good to have that cleared up.

"Two months," Jee repeated. His voice was remarkably steady. "Sir," he added, belatedly, and immediately felt like a complete idiot.

A brief shudder went through Zuko. He narrowed his eyes and scrunched up his mouth for a moment, like he was trying to swallow something too big for his throat.

Jee blinked, and then almost smiled when he realized that he'd just  _seen_  a laugh. He'd made the brat prince laugh. Zuko had forgotten to add the appropriate sounds, but for him, it had been a rather good try.

They could work on that, maybe. Later.

"Sir..." he tried again.

The shudder came back at once, longer and more vehement. It rippled across Zuko's ribcage like a very quick series of hiccups. He ducked his entire head behind the door jamb while riding it out, but he still didn't make a sound.

This time Jee did smile. Then the taste of bile rose in his mouth again, so suddenly that his eyes watered.

He could have destroyed this. If Zuko had taken five more seconds to step out of that room, five more seconds to decide that he was going to trust Jee and take what he thought was being offered... Ten seconds at the very most, and Jee would have started saying  _things_.

If he hadn't realized what Zuko was trying to do, he would have started talking no matter what, and without even the faintest idea of how deep he was cutting. He could have torn the brat to shreds while convinced he was just scratching him. He would have spent many more quiet years on this ship, pleased with himself at the way he'd gained some peace and freedom. He would have been  _pleased_  at finally having managed to teach Zuko something of value, even if it was that life is cruel and that what goes around comes around. He would have continued to exist alongside this person, seeing his face every day, sharing his food and his ship and his life, never realizing that he hadn't driven him away so much as murdered half of him. Zuko would have taken it and hidden it and never told a soul.

It hadn't happened. Somehow, by the grace of Agni or the mercy of the spirits or an insane stroke of luck, he hadn't  _done_  it, and now he had to make sure Zuko never found out what he'd just escaped. He had to make up for it. At least he had some inkling of how he could accomplish that, now.

Jee waited until Zuko was looking at him again, and made a great effort at twisting his face into its usual scowl.

"Stop laughing at me."

Zuko was very pink all of a sudden, but his nod was steady enough. His face went completely blank before Jee's eyes. It was almost creepy, but Jee had seen him do it several times before, and the General as well. It was probably something royals were taught to do from childhood.

Jee nodded back. "Think about it until you come of age, sir. About this."

That earned him the familiar frown of disdain he'd expected.

"I don't need to  _think_  for two months. I already know what I want."

If the brat understood any part of himself bigger than his thumb right at this moment, Jee would eat his pipa, but it probably wasn't wise to argue the point. He needed to convince Zuko to mull this over for a bit longer. Jee had no idea how much thought the brat might have put into the concept of asking  _him_  for sex before tonight, but given how impulsive he tended to be, it might not be very much. Jee wasn't going to take advantage of Zuko's own restless nature and let him rush headlong into something he'd regret later. Whatever he did from now on, he wouldn't go about it like Zhao would. And not like the General would, either. If they were going to do this, Zuko would have to start listening to him. No doubt total obedience was too much to ask, but Jee had to be sure he'd be able to stop Zuko if the brat tried to go too far too fast.

"Then use the time to make a long list of everything you want, sir. It wouldn't be honorable for me to approach anyone who isn't of age."

That was true. It was also a reason Zuko could obviously respect, because he nodded almost at once.

"Very well. Two months, but then you're going to teach me... this.”

_This_ , he said.  _This_. If that was the extent of what he was comfortable putting into words, he definitely needed some time.

Jee just nodded. "Yes, sir.”

"And you'll also show me how to punch people. Like you did Zhao.”

The change of topic threw Jee completely for a second. "What?”

Zuko glared, maybe because of the lack of a proper address or because Jee was being annoyingly dense. "I want to know how to fight with my bare hands. You can do that.”

Jee could, but not all that well, to be honest. He hadn't even managed to hit Zhao at all, but apparently Zuko considered that a moot point.

Best to just agree for now. It was an odd request, but he owed Zuko a lot more than a few boxing lessons after today.

"I'll try, sir. But fighting without bending is hard to learn. And messy.”

Zuko shrugged. "I don't know how to punch people, but I can already fight without bending. I have swords.”

The ones on the wall of his cabin? Jee had seen them, but if Zuko had ever used them on board the ship, he'd done so without anyone noticing. The brat prince waving large and sharp swords around would definitely have been treated as news in the mess room.

"You can? Where did you learn that?”

"I taught myself. I practice in the rhino hold at night.” Zuko looked decidedly shifty for a second. "Don't tell my uncle.”

Fat chance of that. If the General ever caught wind of what had happened here, Jee had no doubt he'd be going the way of the mechanical bird faster than he could say "Forgive me”.

"I promise, sir.”

"Good,” Zuko said. There was something new and warm in his raspy voice, as if after his discovery of the silent laugh, he was now trying out the invisible smile.

Zuko shifted his weight from foot to foot a few times. His eyes darted away from Jee and to the inside of the shower room, and he suddenly looked very, very uncomfortable. Jee didn't have to see what was behind that door jamb to guess why. His own erection had wilted entirely, but whatever Zuko had been fantasizing about earlier, he hadn't had his train of thought interrupted by the realization that he was a monster.

Jee was about to say something encouraging, but then Zuko seemed to remember that he was the Prince and didn't need permission to end a conversation so he could go wank.

"Dismissed, Lieutenant,” he said, not quite unkindly.

With that, he vanished back into the shower room. The door slammed shut, and the sound of flowing water resumed almost at once. He'd disappeared so fast that Jee needed a few moments of furious blinking to clear away the afterimage of long white limbs.

He wasn't sure, but under the noise of the shower, he thought he heard something like a fist thudding repeatedly against a metal wall.

Jee stood in the corridor until the puddle on the floor reached his feet and began to soak into the bottom of his slippers. The sudden cold wetness against his soles jolted him like a bolt of lightning. He barely remembered to grab his towel and the molten lump of metal before he turned and escaped. Fortunately, the latrines were close to the shower room, and he made it there before being sick.

Once he'd gotten that over with, he felt much better - clearer, emptier, not quite that full of ugly and foreign things anymore. Still, there was thinking he had to do, and he couldn't do it on his knees in a smelly little room while badly drawn Zhao faces and horny rhinos stared down on him from the door. He went by his cabin to grab a tunic and walked out onto the deck.

It was too warm out here as well, but right now, he'd prefer it above any cooler but darker place. Everything on deck was dyed in an almost luminous pattern of white and grayish blue. They relied on the moon for illumination while they were at sea, rather than lighting fires, to make sure everyone's night vision remained sharp and any obstacles in the ship's path could be spotted in time.

The sight of his ship at night never failed to make something catch in Jee's throat. It was hardly appropriate or even normal for a firebender to be this fond of the sea, and the moonlit sea at that. But he always felt homesick when he had to spend more than a few days on land. He'd hated Ba Sing Se for many, many reasons, but mostly because it had been so far away from the beauty and peace of  _this_.

He returned the murmured greetings of the men on morning watch, found a secluded spot by the railing behind the boiler, and sent the remains of the bird to a watery grave without any further ceremony. Then he sank down into a crouch and just watched his men go about their work. Lin Wei and Bao were putting a new coating of no-skid and fireproof paint over the space where bending practice took place. Off to the right, the large, comforting bulk of Haisu sat hunched over a neat circle of planks coated in gently smoking tar. It would be a bucket by the time he was through with it.

Jee let his eyes drift back to the foredeck and thought of bending practice. He wasn't really involved with Zuko's training, but that was because they never managed to have practice duels without their sparring turning vicious. Perhaps they could give it another go now. He suspected that Zuko might like to learn a few high-level leap-and-kick bending combinations, the kind that used to be Jee's specialty when he was younger. The brat would probably love practicing something that was more fun than those basic arm blasts that seemed to frustrate him so much. The General was a good teacher, but he was an upper body fighter, someone with an immensely strong torso and arms who was almost unbeatable once he'd settled into a firmly rooted stance. That style didn't suit Zuko, really. He was a natural kicker, like Jee, or at least like Jee had been when he was still limber enough to do aerial acrobatics and spin on his hands five times in a row. Maybe Jee could show him a trick or two when the General wasn't looking.

Now that he was thinking about it, plenty of things that he could teach Zuko came to mind. He could teach him how to suck cock. Grab that ponytail like a handle and guide him, tell him what do do with his hands and that tongue and...

_Zhao, Zhao!_  Jee rubbed his face furiously and gave his sideburns a painful yank. He really was going to wait for Zuko to come of age before he let his mind wander any further down that particular track. Not that he'd be robbing the cradle any less by waiting a few more months. Actually, he was more than half furious with himself when he thought about how he could have been in that shower room  _right now_  with a cock in his mouth and an ass in his hands and Agni only knew what else later. But even though he didn't believe in self-flagellation, he did feel like he deserved to be made to wait a few months. He hadn't done much to earn it today. He'd been a perfect monster today, really. Zhao would be delighted to know he'd made an impression.

Jee was going to find out if Zhao had actually tried to get anywhere with  _his_  brat prince. And if the walking sack of pus had so much as breathed on Zuko, Jee would tear him limb from limb and eat his charred flesh with noodles.

Was the General teaching his nephew how to fight dirty? Not very likely. Jee could do that. He could show the brat how to take advan tage of the few weak points that standard Fire Nation armor had in the groin area, just so he'd be able to give Zhao a kick in the right spot if the ugly old bastard ever tried anything.

Or he could teach Zuko to just hum "The Girls from Ba Sing Se" at Zhao. In fact, he could do that right now. The red-tinted window of Zuko's room was perfectly visible from where he was sitting, and it was aglow with candlelight. The brat was awake. He was listening.

Someone stepped up to the railing next to Jee.

"Sir? No sleeping tonight?"

Ah. Haisu. Just the man Jee wanted to see, actually. Like about half of the Yuan's crew, Haisu had been with Jee and the General at Ba Sing Se, but he was the only one who had also stayed at Jee's side during his two years in the purgatory that was Zhao's ship.

Jee looked up at him. "I'm not tired. Can you still sing "The Balls of Captain Zhao"?"

Haisu gave him a slow, filthy leer that was ridiculously unsuited to his placid face. "Every word, sir."

"Get your drum. It's music night," Jee said, grabbing the railing and pulling himself to his feet with a grunt. "Fetch my pipa while you're at it."

Haisu disappeared into the ship, still grinning. He returned not only with his drum and Jee's pipa, but also with Shi, Lei, Bao's set of drums, and Cook bearing mugs and paint stripper. Good man, Haisu.

"The Balls of Captain Zhao" was one of those special songs that got twice as hilarious with every repetition. Jee spent a very relaxing few hours fine-tuning the words and the arrangement, had a little more paint stripper than usual while making sure Lei had absolutely none, pretended not to notice when Shi stuffed his hand down the back of Haisu's pants, and sang far too loudly so that his voice would carry all the way up to the officers' cabins.

 

* * *

  
 __  
 **Folded note attached to Lieutenant Jee's cabin door**    


_Lieutenant, I was passing by Prince Zuko's room this morning and I could swear I heard him hum "The Girls from Ba Sing Se". It's wonderful that he's taking an interest in music again. Do you remember where we packed away his tsungi horn?_

_In the interest of encouraging this happy development, please make sure that helmsman Lei stops asking people to blow his tsungi horn whenever he's had a few too many drinks. Prince Zuko finds it terribly offensive, and I'm starting to believe that the continuing popularity of that particular joke is one of the reasons why he's refusing to take up the instrument again._

_General Iroh_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene where Zuko tries to mimic Jee's facial expression was ripped off from the "Forbidden Friendship" scene from How to Train Your Dragon.


	3. In which a very special birthday is celebrated, part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many apologies for the long wait. This one turned into a giant monster of a chapter, so it's been split in three parts. Part 2 will be posted later today after some final tweaking. Part 3 may take a couple of weeks.
> 
> A big thank you to jin_fenghuang for the beta! Any errors remaining are my own.

  


__  
**Note attached to the wall of the mess room**    


_Judging from the number of fights I've had to break up over the last three days, it seems this whole ship is once again suffering from a case of collective sun madness. Calm ~~the fuck~~  down. We don't know when the heat wave will pass or the clouds will come back, and no, changing course in any direction will not help. We're far from any ports and there are no signs that temperatures are more bearable elsewhere. Stop bothering the helmsman before he decides to run us into a reef. And stop asking mechanist Peng to make the showers run cold, they don't work that way._

_I suppose you'll be happy to hear that starting tomorrow, we will drop anchor once a day for a swimming break. The rules are the same as last year and the year before that, with the following additions:_

_\- Do not dare each other to swim under the keel._  
\- Do not pretend to be a shark.  
\- Swimming break will last for one hour. We will abandon anyone who doesn't return immediately when the watch bell tolls.  
\- Fish and turtles are not in league with the water savages and do not deserve to die. Be prepared to eat anything you torch.  
\- I cannot believe I still need to repeat this, but do not drink sea water.  
\- Do not recreate famous historical naval battles. You shame the memory of our lost battleships by pretending to be them.  
\- There will not be more than one swimming break per day, but the break will be planned during a different watch every day so everyone can have a turn. People who are on watch during swimming break: nobody cares about your suffering.  
\- I know it's pointless to forbid you from playing dangerous games. But please, for the love of all fire spirits, keep in mind what Prince Zuko did the last time someone tried to dunk him.  
\- Do not surface from a dive yelling that you saw the Avatar. See above. 

To whoever has been trying to toll the watch bell to "The Balls of Captain Zhao" for the past four days: report to the first mate immediately and ask him to explain to you in small words what a tune is. 

Lieutenant Jee 

_  
_

* * *

 

Cook said that the summers were getting longer and hotter every year because Sozin's comet was due to return soon. Jee was fairly sure he was just making that up, but whatever was really going on with the weather, it was hideous. The heat was so savage that most people on watch were busy simply hauling up buckets of sea water to throw over the sizzling deck to keep the metal plating from burning boots and feet. Nobody was getting enough sleep because all of the officer's cabins and the crew mess had turned into pressure cookers. The only slightly cool place left on the ship was the hold. The men really weren't supposed to relocate their bedrolls there to nap between the barrels of pickled cabbage and salted picken, but Jee didn't have the heart to force them to return to the mess room and their hammocks. He rather felt like joining them. The General had; he'd carried his pai sho table down from its usual spot on the bridge and was now holding court in the corner with the rice sacks. Jee had no idea where Zuko was sleeping these days. The brat couldn't possibly be staying in his cabin, but wherever his new nest was, no one had discovered it so far.

Swimming breaks weren't a favor to the men so much as a dire necessity. Without it, Jee knew that he'd soon be breaking up Agni Kai to the death instead of skirmishes and fistfights. Leading crews of firebending sailors was always a bit like herding cat-hounds, and crews of firebending sailors who were high on an overdose of sun were no longer a crew so much as a rabid pack. The only thing a captain could do was let them cool off as much as possible and hope that nobody would get killed.

Unfortunately, benders had a lot more trouble cooling off than they had with heating up. Jee extended the swimming break to two hours, then three. The lack of wind meant that the sailing ships of the water savages and Ba Sing Se's laughable navy wouldn't be able to move at all, so it was unlikely any enemy vessels would manage to approach while two thirds of the men were paddling around in their underclothes. It also gave Jee plenty of time to work on the ancient little skiff that he'd won in a game of mahjong two ports ago. The thing was about two hard knocks away from becoming a total wreck, but the General had let him bring it on board because Jee was confident that he could patch it up, and because having a motorized skiff instead of only sloops with paddles would greatly improve their range for shopping. Zuko had taken one glance at the skiff, called it a useless waste of time, and proceeded to ignore it in favor of stripping off his sweat-soaked clothes and jumping into the sea. He seemed to be very fond of swimming. Things were bad indeed when even the prince was more preoccupied with finding refuge from the sweltering heat than with chasing his Avatar.

Staying out of the water while the others were splashing around made Jee's fire crawl under his skin even worse than it already was, but he liked tinkering with engines, and it was very distracting work. And Jee was in desperate need of distraction. Summer weather always made the days crawl by, but now that he had something to wait for, time was flipping back on itself. Three hours seemed to be added for every hour that passed.

Two months until the brat prince came of age and was no longer off limits. It really hadn't sounded like a very long time when Zuko said it; Jee was thirty-eight and felt like fifty on most days, so two months should have been little more than the blink of an eye. They weren't. It started when Jee realized that he had no idea when exactly Zuko's birthday was. Of course he didn't - it wasn't like he'd had any reason to pay attention the previous years, and he could barely remember his own date of birth most of the time anyway. Without a clear and definite goal in sight, "two months" could be anywhere from fifty to seventy days, and the exact number suddenly felt relevant enough to lie awake over at night. Jee wracked his brains for ways to figure out exactly when Zuko's birthday was without asking him directly and sound just like the overeager old lecher he was. He went so far as to read through the entire log book of the past two years to check if he'd ever made a reference to the event - he hadn't, of course he hadn't, that would have been too convenient. Some of the crew with longer memories than Jee might know when Prince Zuko had had his birthday the previous years, and he almost asked, but they'd gossip about why Jee wanted to know until their tongues started smoking and the General realized that something out of the ordinary was going on.

It wasn't his fault. Was he really supposed to wait in peace and keep his head on his job when Zuko was parading around nearly naked in front of him every day? He hadn't even hugged anyone in at least half a year.

It was a wonderful opportunity for Zuko to display his infinite talent for making any bad situation worse - by accident whenever he wasn't doing it on purpose. He didn't disappoint. Three days after Jee first let his skiff out on the sea to see if it would remain afloat while he continued to grapple with the finer controls of the engine, he nearly fell overboard when the boat made a sudden lurch that had nothing to do with the perfectly calm sea. Zuko's disembodied head was bobbing above the skiff's railing. He was clinging to the edge with both hands and staring at the mass of parts scattered over the little deck, with open curiosity rather than disdain this time. The metal of the railing sizzled and steamed under his wet fingers, and the sun gave a shine to his bald scalp. He'd lost his bright red hair tie somewhere, and most of his ponytail was in a fierce tangle around one ear. He looked rather a lot like a scroll painting of some sharp-toothed, wild-faced fish-woman emerging from the deep to pull sailors to their graves.

Fortunately, he hoisted himself onto the skiff and sat down on the elevated stern before the fish woman image could take root in Jee's head and make him laugh. Zuko didn't explain what he wanted, so Jee gave him a nod of greeting and continued his work. He'd have to look at the brat to talk with him, and he'd probably end up saying something idiotic and counterproductive like "Put some clothes on".

Zuko just studied him and, apparently, the skiff, in uncharacteristic silence for nearly an hour. When the watch bell rang, Zuko launched himself into the water and swam back to the Yuan so he could shimmy up the anchor chain like the other younger and more nimble crewmen. Little show-off.

He came back the next swimming break, and the one after that, but Jee wasn't as surprised as he would have been a few weeks ago. The skiff was coming along very nicely indeed. It really hadn't looked like more than a very large and ugly lump of scrap before. Now, though, an untrained eye like Zuko's would see a clean and organized mess of gleaming, mysterious metal parts and tempting little controls. All boys loved engines, even patently insane royal boys. Jee doubted if there had been much hissing, clunking, and rattling machinery for Zuko to toy with back home. Royalty didn't like having oil and coal dust all over their fancy palaces.

He remembered the General's stupid platitude about Zuko reflecting back what others showed him, and figured that maybe it wouldn't hurt to try and take that very literally. Whenever Zuko popped up over the side of the skiff during the following days, Jee simply made room for him, kept at his tasks, and waited for Zuko to lose patience and _do_ something. It worked. Whether he was fiddling with the machinery, steering, or shoveling coal into the furnace, it usually wasn't long before Zuko came closer so he could see what Jee was doing. After three days of this, Jee descended into the hold at the start of another swimming break and found that the signal lamp he'd left in pieces the day before had been cleaned and put back together.

When Zuko tumbled on board again half an hour later, Jee thanked him politely for the work and asked if he could fix up another one of the soot-encrusted lamps to be used as a spare. The brat actually obeyed, although it took him two hours to finish, two hours that Jee spent biting his tongue so he wouldn't blurt out that it would really go a lot faster if he'd use the soap that was sitting to his left. He suspected that Zuko hadn't spotted it because it was out of range of his mutilated eye, though. Or maybe he just couldn't see it at all; Jee had no idea how much vision the brat actually had left there. Either way, he didn't know how he could draw attention to it without making Zuko mad.

After another week or so, he realized that of all the myriad tasks that could be done on the skiff, Zuko seemed to have a strange preference for the most exhausting, mind-numbing, and repetitive one of all - shoveling coal. Maybe he was trying to build up more muscle. To Jee's fairly expert eye, the brat hardly needed it; the beads of sweat that drew trails through the coal dust on his skin accented musculature that a man twice Zuko's age would be proud of.

There were a lot of those fine trails through the black dust. Some of them went from the top of the brat's head all the way down to the hem of his loincloth. There were also trails that started somewhere under the shadowed edge of the faded length of red fabric that was rolled tightly around his hips. The lines wrapped around his bare legs in lazy, elongated spirals that criss-crossed everywhere, like the mesh of a shredded net.

Jee let Zuko shovel all the coal he liked after noticing that, because he didn't dare suggest some alternative task that might make this particular vision go away. But the hours became more like weeks.

 

* * *

  
__  
**Note attached to the wall of the mess room**    


_Dear crew,_

_As some of you may know, my nephew will become sixteen years old in a little less than three months, on the sixth day of the tenth month. He has made it clear that he wants the official coming of age ceremony to remain a private affair in his cabin, but we should arrange for some form of celebration afterwards. I'm certain I can convince him to sit still for at least a toast or two. And if he prefers to spend the day alone, it would still please me very much if you could all engage in some merry-making in Prince Zuko's name. I'm sure we all have fond memories of the day we ourselves came of age. It should be an occasion of laughter and joy._

_So, I propose a feast of only real Fire Nation foods! Komodo sausages in tare sauce, fire onion tempura, all those lovely dishes we've all been missing for the past years. The ingredients are somewhat expensive to come by out here and our common budget is always tight. But if you could all be so kind as to contribute one or two silver _sen_  out of your personal wages over the next few months, I will find a way to triple the total amount you collect with my own funds so that our dear master Cook has all he needs to make this a party to remember. First mate, would you be so kind as to take charge of the collecting? I understand you are our money man._

_Of course our mission sometimes makes our course a bit unpredictable, but it is most likely that we will be mooring at Nan Seng by the time of Prince Zuko's birthday, or so I am told by our good helmsman. Now, I have never visited the port of Nan Seng myself. Will anyone who has be so kind as to tell me what entertainments it offers? Any sort of pleasant diversion is of always of interest to me, of course, but you can probably guess that my first and foremost concern right now is to find my nephew a beautiful lady friend for the night. Does anyone have any recommendations as to establishments where I might find a lady who is both suitably lovely and not easily offended?_

_Please come to me with any suggestions. As I'm sure this question will be the first asked: yes, I will allow alcohol._

_General Iroh_

__  
**Scrawled in very large characters at the bottom of General Iroh's note**    


_UNCLE, I SAID NO._

__  
**Written in General Iroh's hand under the scrawl**    


_Prince Zuko, I didn't realize you spend time in the mess room! It's good of you to socialize. Do let your old uncle indulge himself a little, you will come of age only once and I would like to make the day special for you. My apologies for spoiling your surprise._

__  
**Scrawled in very large characters under General Iroh's note**    


_WHAT SURPRISE? YOU'VE BEEN THREATENING ME WITH THIS FOR A YEAR. NO!_

__  
**Note attached to the door of General Iroh's cabin**    


_Sir, the sixth day of the tenth month is seventy-three days from now. I was under the impression that Prince Zuko's birthday is sometime in the next two months?_

_Lieutenant Jee_

__  
**Note under a delicious cup of jasmine tea left in front of Lieutenant Jee's cabin**    


_No, I'm quite certain when my nephew was born. I was there, after all! Not in the room, of course._

_I'm happy to hear that you would like to be involved in the planning, Lieutenant. Would you be so kind as to take responsibility for finding a lovely lady in Nan Seng who might keep my nephew company after the party? Don't pay any mind to what Prince Zuko wrote on my announcement. It's in his nature to answer every question with a "no", but I'm sure he's quite ready to get that part of becoming a man over with. The men on laundry duty tell me that his bedsheets are full of burn holes these days. I was beginning to worry a little, to be honest. Lu Ten was more than a year younger than this the first time we had to go pluck him out of a harbor establishment._

_General Iroh_

__  
**Note attached to the door of General Iroh's cabin**    


_Sir, I'm not familiar with that area of Nan Seng. I recommend you give the responsibility to someone else._

_Lieutenant Jee_

__  
**Unsigned note tucked in the hatch to Prince Zuko's cabin, written in an extremely rough and untidy version of Lieutenant Jee's hand**    


__  
~~DO YOU CALL THAT TWO MONTHS, YOU~~    


__  
~~Do you have any idea what I~~    


__  
~~Nice try, you lying little~~    


__  
~~Sir, I swear to you on my honor that I will make you pay a bucket of sweat for every single day of the extra three weeks that I have to sit in my bunk alone and~~    


_Sir, it was the fourteenth day of the seventh month when you told me your birthday was in two months. There are eighty-five days between that day and the sixth day of the tenth month. For future reference, "two months" is not a rough equivalent of eighty-five days. I will assume this was an honest mistake on your part and you simply aren't very good at reading calendars._

__  
**Burned in Lieutenant Jee's only set of sheets**    


_IT WAS YOUR IDEA TO WAIT_

_  
_

* * *

 

Zuko was clearly angry, more than usual. He stopped appearing on the skiff entirely. It probably saved Jee from committing regicide, but it also made him realize that his little boat was dreadfully boring without a boy in a loincloth lounging around on it, and that cooled his anger significantly. Yes, he was being made to wait a good three weeks longer than he'd been promised, and that just  _hurt_. But he remembered what it was like to be that age and want to screw everything that breathed and had the proper number of arms and legs. He remembered being fifteen and wanting to turn sixteen so badly that he'd have murdered someone if that would have brought the happy day around any sooner. Maybe Zuko had just been trying to will the months to go by faster. Maybe he'd been trying to sound more mature than he was. Or maybe he really had just miscalculated; he'd been more than a little distracted at the time.

Giving the brat prince the benefit of the doubt was hard work, enough to make his head hurt a little, but Jee managed to conjure up enough goodwill to stop giving Zuko the evil eye and offer to give him the boxing lesson he'd asked for. An organized opportunity to beat each other's face in sounded like something that might clear the air a bit.

That had been the theory, but Jee ruined it almost at once. He wasn't fit to teach anyone fisticuffs, really. All of the bare-handed fighting he'd ever done had taken place in bars that were so cramped and crowded that whipping around fire wasn't an option, and he'd been drunk for most of those occasions. He'd never had to hit someone only by way of demonstration, not too hard and while trying to anticipate the unexpected movements that an inexperienced student would make. They'd been at it for less than a minute when he miscalculated a punch and slammed his fist full-force into the side of Zuko's mouth.

The brat staggered until his back hit the side of the hull, where he doubled over, coughing wetly into his hands and making rather alarming bubbling noises. When Jee finally mustered up the courage to approach and ask him if he was all right, Zuko spat a gob of blood and a gore-covered tooth right in his face. Then he kicked Jee in the knees and stormed away.

He spent most of the next day yelling at his uncle that yes, he really had knocked himself in the face with his armor while dressing. At least it had been a bottom tooth that was far enough to the side for the gap to be invisible. Unless he happened to laugh, but that would happen when Zhao took up fan dancing and the Avatar returned.

Jee decided to stick to teaching the brat things that he actually knew how to do. He put the tooth in the leather pouch that also held his remaining Earth Kingdom coins, the red dragon-bat charm his mother had given him when he first signed up for the navy, and his severed topknot. A piece of the crown prince was a spoils worth preserving.

 

* * *

  
__  
**Note attached to the wall of the mess room**    


_Dear crew,_

_A very good morning! You have my sincere gratitude for your generosity and good spirits. Master Cook reassures me that he has more than enough funds to make us a truly unforgettable feast tonight, provided that two or three of you can tear yourselves away from making silly party decorations and accompany him into Nan Seng to shop. After breakfast, of course._

_If there are any more questions regarding tonight's celebration, address them to me instead of disturbing Prince Zuko. As mentioned, I will be giving him the blessings in private late in the afternoon, since he seems to be rather violently averse to a public ceremony. He will be meditating from noon until then, though. Please take care not to disturb him. In the tradition of Caldera and the Royal Family, meditation is considered an important part of the ceremony, and Prince Zuko takes adherence to the ways of his forefathers very seriously indeed._

_Lieutenant, could you take proper measures to make sure that nobody distracts Prince Zuko today?_

_General Iroh_

__  
**Written at the bottom of General Iroh's note**    


_Yes, sir. Thank you for mentioning this._

_Lieutenant Jee_

__  
**Unsigned note placed on Prince Zuko's pillow while he left his cabin to steal rice balls from the galley, now lying crumpled and half burned under his meditation desk**    


_Sir, did you finish that list of things you want me to teach you? If you need any suggestions, I'll be in my bunk._

_  
_

* * *

 

When the General emerged on deck for the start of the party, just before sundown, Haisu asked him how Prince Zuko's ceremony had gone.

"Quite well. Although he did forget his lines a few times. He didn't seem very relaxed," the General said.

Jee nodded along with Haisu and didn't bother to keep his face free of any hints of glee or triumph. People were probably going to notice, because he wasn't known for smiling a lot, but the men would just assume that he was happy to be getting komodo sausages in tare sauce. They all were, after all.

Zuko didn't show for his party, to the surprise of no one and the relief of everyone except the General, who spent the first half of the evening glancing at the deck door and eating in rather morose silence while the rest of the men made merry around him. Nobody paid him much mind, though, and the evening turned into a very amusing affair quickly. Jee hadn't doubted it would, with or without the guest of honor; their budget was so tight that it very rarely allowed for anything out of the ordinary, let alone veritable feasts with real Fire Nation delicacies, and the crew had grasped at the General's suggestion as if they hadn't been allowed to celebrate anything in a decade.

After a good number of the plates had been polished off, the General's good mood was back in full force. He got up and clapped his hands.

"Master Cook, I am speechless," he said, and promptly put it to the lie. "In all my many years in Caldera, not once have I eaten so well, and in such cheerful company. I fear I'll never be able to enjoy another plate of tempura, because none could compare to the one I just had the pleasure of tasting. And I'm happy to see there is much left... Because we'll all be hungry again after some music!"

The men cheered and started reaching for drums and lutes. Jee gave Cook a nod of thanks, raised his cup to the General - and was splashed in the face with plum wine as his hand was jerked down by some invisible force.

He lowered the now almost empty cup and peered into it. There was a peach pit at the bottom.

While he was blinking down at it, another pit whizzed past his nose and met a gloopy end in the bowl of congealing tempura sauce next to his left foot.

Jee didn't look up. He didn't have to; there was only one place from which someone could be dropping projectiles straight down, and only one person on the whole ship who was both bold and juvenile enough to chuck things at his head. Clearly, he was being summoned. Hopefully for another kind of party, not some kind of vicious and bratty counter-revenge for having disturbed the sanctity of royal meditation time.

Jee wedged an unopened bottle of plum wine under his belt, grabbed a bowl of fire flakes, and pushed his pipa into Bao's arms.

"Here. Practice, you need it. Leave it in my cabin later," he said, and he was already stalking into the superstructure by the time Bao's surprised "Thank you, sir!" reached his ears.

There were regular stairs to the bridge, but the way was much shorter via the emergency ladders, and Jee kept the edge of the bowl in his teeth as he climbed up. The bridge was dark and deserted. Jee would know his way through every corner of the ship even if he were blind, though, and he tiptoed around the protruding levers and the floor compass until he reached the open door to the bridge deck.

There he was, sitting cross-legged and staring away from Jee at the cheerful ruckus below. He was just far enough from the edge of the deck to be invisible from below, and so nobody could sneak up on him and kick him through the bars of the railing. It was an uncommonly mild evening for the middle of autumn, especially for the southern Earth Kingdom coast that they were traversing, and most of the men not on watch hadn't worn their armor today. Zuko hadn't bothered either. He was in a comfortable-looking pair of red silk breeches that Jee couldn't remember seeing before, and one of his high-collared, sleeveless training tunics.

It was stretched so tightly around the his back and chest that it looked about to pop. They'd need to get him some new clothes in town tomorrow. Zuko seemed to hate shopping even more than he hated all other activities that required him to leave the sanctuary of the ship and mingle with staring commoners. Usually, the General just pushed some coins at someone who looked about to walk off the gang plank and told them to bring a replacement for whatever piece of clothing Zuko had just destroyed by growing right out of it.

"Evening, sir."

He'd been fairly certain that Zuko had noticed his presence, and the lack of reaction to his greeting only confirmed it. The brat didn't even look at him.

"Lieutenant. Don't stand there, they'll see you."

That was probably as close to an invitation as he was ever going to get. Jee sat down a good arm's length away from the brat, copying his posture. The deck plating was pleasantly cool under his legs.

Now that he was on Zuko's eye level, it turned out that the main deck wasn't visible at all from this angle. He did have a rather stunning view of the port and the town beyond it. Nan Seng wasn't large, but it had been colonized almost three decades ago, and Fire Nation lanterns lit up the vast majority of the buildings. The dirt munchers somehow managed to make even their lights look drab and brown. Fire lanterns, though, came in countless hues of bright red, yellow, grass green, blue, and everything in between. Jee didn't often miss his home village or the royal harbor city at Caldera, but it was hard not to when faced with the sight of a colony town lit up like a veritable tapestry of fire and color.

Zuko's profile was completely expressionless. He probably wasn't thinking happy thoughts, though. The coming of age of a crown prince would have been a nation-wide celebration at home, with fireworks, gifts, and days of eating and drinking and dancing with every pretty noble girl that the Thousand Islands could boast. The General had done his best, but some spicier food than usual and a bunch of rowdy sailors couldn't possibly compare.

The complete lack of acknowledgment from Caldera was a tad strange. Of course royalty worked in mysterious ways, and Zuko was still banished, but Jee had expected the Fire Lord to at least send his heir a gift or two. There hadn't even been a hawk message.

Perhaps Zuko's parents were simply as incapable of reading calendars as their offspring. Jee pushed the bowl forward.

"Fire flakes, sir?"

Zuko turned to look at the bowl, nose twitching. He grabbed a big handful of flakes, and Jee very carefully did not smile at all. If he'd known that the prince's good mood could be bought with treats, he'd have tried it years ago.

He'd forgotten to bring cups. From the bottle, then. "Would you like a drink, sir?"

Zuko glowered at the beautifully glazed bottle as if it contained deadly poison. It was a good glare, for someone who had three fingers in his mouth to suck off fire flake seasoning. He definitely hadn't learned those table manners in the palace.

" _No_ , I don't."

"It's plum wine, sir." Apparently the one and only time they'd ever succeeded in getting Zuko to drink had been as memorable for him as for everyone else who was there. Jee had spent a good half hour holding the little rotter over the side of the ship after he'd accepted a dare from Lei and downed a whole bottle of Cook's paint stripper. It was still one of Jee's most treasured memories.

Zuko had been sick for three days straight, though, and the General had been extremely unhappy with all of them. The old man still didn't seem to trust them on the matter of alcohol and Zuko, even if he was conceding that it was time to let the two meet. He'd pressed an extra pouch of coins in Cook's hand that morning and told him to get a few bottles of ridiculously expensive umeshu, saying that if there had to be drink, there would at least be  _good_ drink. That was a bit unfair, in Jee's opinion; Cook had decades of experience making quality paint stripper, and if it hadn't killed Zuko when he was fourteen, it wouldn't now that he was bigger and stronger.

But the sweet plum wine probably did taste better to a beginning drinker. Jee took a small sip, just in case the brat really thought it was actual poison, and offered the bottle again.

"It's not paint stripper, sir. Your uncle got you umeshu."

Zuko shifted his glare from the bottle to Jee's face.

"Did he tell you to get me to drink?"

What was that about? "No, sir. I just thought you might like to give it a try."

"Fine," Zuko snapped. He grabbed the bottle, sniffed it, and tipped it back. He blinked and took another sip immediately. Jee looked away to hide his grin.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Zuko taking intermittent sips from his bottle. He made no move to put it down or give it back, and Jee began wondering how he might convince him to surrender it again. Plum wine went down  _very_ easily. Zuko could get himself blind drunk without even realizing it, and then Jee would feel obligated to keep his hands off until the brat was in full possession of his faculties again.

"Won't you come down for a bit, sir? Your uncle misses you. He was hoping you'd come."

"No. He's had his fun for today," Zuko growled.

There was an astonishing amount of real anger in his voice, enough to make Jee sit up and pay attention, but Zuko had turned his head away again. He was glaring down at the deck, in the direction of whe re the General's voice was belting out a rather unorthodox rendition of "The Ballad of Oma and Shu".

"Sir?"

It was a long time before Zuko answered.

"Uncle wants to take me to a pleasure house. After the party." The next sip he took was more like a gulp, and he had to slap his hand over his mouth to muffle a few hard coughs. He put the bottle down to do it, and Jee quickly snatched it and put it out of sight behind his leg.

He thought about the prince face to face with a prostitute. Now that the danger of it actually happening today seemed to have become very remote indeed, it was easily the funniest mental image he'd had in a month.

He grinned. "Yes, sir. We noticed."

Zuko whipped his head around, ponytail snapping, and Jee erased all expression from his face only just in time.

"I told him no! I told him no a  _hundred_  times! But he was going to try it anyway, I could tell. If I go down there, he'll trick me into it somehow."

"It's traditional for older relatives to arrange a visit to a pleasure house on a boy's sixteenth birthday, sir. Your uncle is just trying to do you a favor."

Zuko's scowl turned even more ferocious.

"I don't want it!"

"Yes, we noticed that too."

The mismatched face twisted into something very, very odd. It almost looked like disappointment.

"Why are you laughing at me? I don't care if you and Uncle and the whole stupid world think I need to be dragged to a whorehouse!  _I don't want it!_ "

Jee had spent many years listening to the steady stream of nonsense that came out of most sailors' mouths, but he didn't think he'd ever heard anyone refuse a free visit to a brothel.

"Why not?"

"That's none of your business! I just  _don't want it!_ "

Zuko had barely raised his voice, but he'd leaned in close, and every word he snapped out sent its own small wave of heat rushing across Jee's face. The warmth curled ov er his closed eyelids and pricked at his skin, as if he'd put his face next to a log fire.

He opened his mouth just a little bit to let in the tiny amount of chi that Zuko probaby didn't even realize he was breathing out. The brat had  _interesting_  fire. It was almost frighteningly irregular, barely there one moment and flashing bright and hot the next. Such instability wasn't unusual in a young bender; Jee had never trained any soldier who'd managed to truly master whatever amount of power they'd been born with before the age of twenty. But there was more than simple inexperience in the way Zuko's fire moved, flaring up and snuffing itself out almost in the same moment, leaping about in completely random patterns. It felt like the flame of a fallen candle that was crawling its way over a table piled with all manner of foodstuffs and drinks of various degrees of flammability - erratic, fast, and very hungry.

It was no surprise that the firebenders among the crew were especially meticulous about avoiding the prince. Even the weaker benders among them had enough experience to sense the uncontrolled  _greed_  in Zuko's chi, and they were wary of it.

If Jee were a less capable and less self-assured bender than he was, he supposed the brat might make him uncomfortable, too. As it was, the feral chi was more intriguing than anything else. Whenever he stood close enough and concentrated, he could feel it lick at the exposed skin of his hands and neck, even when Zuko wasn't particularly agitated at all. Fire called to fire. Zuko called in strange tones, but he called loudly, and insistently enough to make Jee wonder what it would be like to taste as well as feel.

Chi didn't really have a flavor of its own, but the way it teased and stroked the palate was intense enough to create a very good illusion of it. Jee hadn't kissed another firebender in  _years_. They rarely made port long enough for him to find anyone he wanted to put his mouth near, and given his position, getting involved with a member of his own crew would have been a dreadful idea in so very many ways.

Of course, Zuko was also a member of the crew, after a fashion. A direct superior, more like, and that was...

Jee shook his head. He really had to just stop thinking. He didn't want to reason himself out of this.

"I'm of age now," Zuko grumbled. "Uncle can't tell me what to do."

Before Jee had realized he was even in motion, Zuko had reached across his lap and snatched up the bottle of plum wine. He glared at Jee and took a very demonstrative sip.

"And neither can you. If you're here to talk me into going into town, you can leave right now. He can't make me."

Now there was a queer edge of fear to the agitated flickering of his chi. Jee blinked. Was he missing something?

"No, sir," he said. "Your uncle doesn't even know you're up here."

That seemed to mollify Zuko a bit. He still looked decidedly unhappy, though.

Jee tried to pitch his voice in the same way he did when convincing a new recruit who'd burned himself during training to just try again. "Sir, the General wouldn't really trick you into going if you don't want to."

"Of course he would," Zuko murmured. "He thinks I can't make up my own mind. He always does that. You'll see, he won't shut up about this until he manages to make me go somehow."

Now that was outright paranoia, not healthy suspicion. The General could barely ever bring himself to tell Zuko off for antics that any other guardian would react to by giving his ward a hard and public trashing. Jee really couldn't imagine the old man actually forcing his nephew to do anything he really didn't want. He wasn't going to try and convince Zuko of that, though. The brat could just figure out for himself that he was harming nothing but his own already barely-there social life by nursing nonsensical suspicions about the one person on this ship who cared if he lived or died.

Still, the idea of the General losing what little control he had over Zuko was more than a bit unsettling. Jee much preferred it when the Royals got along.

He gave Zuko a firm nod. "All right, sir. If the General keeps bothering you about it, tell me and I'll see what I can do."

"You'll  _what?_ "

Oh. Jee hadn't quite meant to suggest that he interfere, but apparently his mouth had been quicker than the rest of him again.

He tried to tug the bottle from Zuko's fingers to buy himself a few moments of thinking time. Zuko hung on to it, and only let go after he'd made it very clear he was giving in only because he wanted to. Jee sighed.

"It's how I usually handle arguments among the crew, sir. If two people have some kind of disagreement that they don't manage to solve, they come to me, or someone else drags them over. Then I try to talk it out."

"Does that ever work?"

The brat looked like he'd be more prepared to believe that hogmonkeys could fly. Jee supposed that if you were Zuko, the idea of solving conflicts with words might sound unlikely.

"About half of the time, sir. The others usually find a way to get along when I threaten to put them on the latrines roster for a month."

There was a hint of a smile on the brat's face, brief enough to be a random muscle twitch.

"You can't do that to my uncle."

Jee tried to imagine explaining to the General that his nephew really didn't want strange women pawing at him, and that Jee would make him clean latrines if he didn't stop hinting at pleasure house visits.

"No. Probably not," he admitted. "But I don't think that would be necessary, sir. A word or two should do. I'm sure it's only a misunderstanding. Your uncle probably assumes that you're just embarrased."

Zuko gave him an absolutely thunderous glower.

"I'm not embarrassed about fucking," he snapped.

_Fucking?_

Jee blinked, trying to remember if he'd ever heard the brat say something really crude before. Cursing was one of those odd things that he'd somehow avoided picking up even after two years among sailors. The General sometimes tried to remind the crew to keep a civil tongue in their heads while in earshot of Zuko, but really, nobody cared that the prince could hear them when they said bad words. This was the first time Jee had heard one repeated back at him, though.

"All right," he said, after a moment. He wasn't sure if Zuko wanted some kind of answer or not.

He was about to try and prod at the reason why a healthy, horny young man would refuse an offer of the loveliest lady of the night that his uncle's gold could buy, but Zuko cut him off.

"Why would you talk to my uncle for me?"

"Because you're a member of this crew, sir, and I'm the captain. It's my job."

"It's your job," Zuko repeated. Both of his eyes had narrowed to barely-there slits, as if he was trying to catch Jee in a lie.

It was a little unnerving, and not pleasant. What had he ever done to the brat that made Zuko treat him like some sort of  _Zhao_ , who lied and deceived just to make others walk into traps of their own making? Nothing!

Well. Except for that one time, with the bloody mechanical bird, when he'd come within a few seconds of doing exactly that in a way that would have made Zhao weep with envy. The memory still made Jee shiver a little.

He held the bottle out again. "Yes, sir, it's my job."

Zuko didn't accept it.

"It's your job to help me when I have trouble with someone else on board."

" _Yes_ , sir." It was very hard not to sound testy.

Zuko pulled a face; the expression was obviously not a happy one, but the scar deformed it too thoroughly for Jee to really decipher it.

"Why are you telling me you can do this sort of thing  _now_? I've been here for two years! Longer!"

Rhino balls. He should have kept his big mouth shut. Now the brat was wondering why Jee had never tried to help him get along with the rest of the world before.

"I'm not really supposed to interfere when one or more of the people involved in some argument are of higher rank than myself, sir."

That was true. Mostly, though, he'd always preferred to make his life a bit easier and solve any conflicts between Zuko and the crew by just keeping them apart. That was what seemed to happen naturally, anyway; Zuko always avoided coming within conversation distance of any of the men, and the majority of them returned the favor. The brat prince simply wasn't approachable like the General, and nobody seemed to feel the urge to get to know him better. His wild fire and miserable temper were only the least of his peculiarities.

And there had been incidents. Most of the crew had been right there when Bao had gotten a bit carried away during a swimming break last summer, grabbed Zuko by the hair, and tried to push him underwater. He'd gotten yanked under himself instead. The others in the water had laughed themselves silly until they realized that Bao and Zuko weren't coming back up. When the Lin brothers finally dove after them and dragged them to the surface, Bao had been blue and all but unconscious. Zuko had still had enough air left to scream Lin Wei's head off for daring to touch him and yell incoherent accusations of assassination and treason at everyone around him. Jee hadn't actually seen the near-drowning episode; he'd only come running when Zuko's yells of fury got loud enough to carry all the way up to the bridge. The General had quickly whisked Zuko away to his cabin, presumably to pour him full of the very special tea and explain that Bao had been trying to play a game with him, not kill him.

It would have been amusing if someone hadn't actually come close to dying. As it was, the episode had been a learning experience for them all. The men had become extremely careful not to even accidentally involve the prince in their games, or in any social activity at all. They knew better than to discuss it where the officers could hear them, but they clearly thought Zuko was more than a little bit crazy. And if the brat didn't even need any bending to nearly kill Bao, who specialized in fighting nasty, he was obviously more dangerous than they'd thought.

Jee thought they were overreacting. The brat had the self control of a rabid raccoon-hound and made absolutely no sense at least half of the time, but that didn't make him so wildly dangerous that he had to be avoided as if he had some kind of contagious disease. They were all grown, experienced men of the Fire Navy. If they didn't feel comfortable being in the presence of one slightly off-kilter boy, they might as well go home and take up gardening instead of soldiering.

Zuko had started tapping his fingers on the deck plating.

"If you're not supposed to interfere in matters between officers, why are you trying to now?"

Well. He could hardly admit that he thought Zuko was so hopeless at getting along with people that Jee had never seen any point in helping him try. Not when the problems were just as easily solved by waiting until Zuko had yelled himself hoarse and went to mope in his cabin for a couple of days.

"It's complicated, sir," he said instead. "You're one of our commanding officers, but you're also your uncle's ward. At least, up to today. I would have been usurping General Iroh's prerogatives if I'd tried to interfere between you and anyone. But there's no longer any risk of that now."

In theory. Hopefully.

Maybe he really should give the brat a hand here. No matter if Zuko's current problems with the General were ridiculous and probably self-inflicted, there was still something profoundly sad about the whole situation. The brat really didn't trust a soul on this ship besides his uncle. And here he was, hiding as far away from the rest of the crew as possible, afraid to attend his own coming-of-age celebration because he thought that same uncle was out to make him do something he didn't want to.

There was something so  _broken_  there that Jee couldn't help but want to fix it. This wasn't the way someone was supposed to feel on a ship. For all that was wrong with the Yuan, and especially with the people he had to share her with, he was at ease here. He couldn't imagine feeling anything but  _free_  while sitting on the highest point of his ship on a perfect autumn evening, with the lights of a port on his left hand, the endless, rushing expanse of the sea on his right, a blanket of stars above him, and the noise of off-key singing and music somewhere far below his feet.

The brat had even more reasons to be happy today. He'd become his own man, liberated from a great deal of whatever control the General still exerted over him. He was free to drink, to kiss, and to decide that he was going to celebrate by doing unspeakable things with some scarred, low-born sailor over twice his age instead of the most beautiful hired girl in the whole of Nan Seng.

Once again, hopefully.

Zuko was staring at his feet. He huddled in the exact center of the rectangle of the railing bars, as if the bridge deck was a prison cell.

There was something wrong with this picture. Whatever it was, Jee really didn't want to make it worse.

He pushed the bottle at Zuko again.

"Sir. Your esteemed uncle doesn't seem to realize that you already made up your mind about where you want to be tonight, and that he's trying to force you in another direction."

Zuko looked up. There was an oddly flat, listless look in his eyes. He took the bottle, but began turning it in his hands instead of drinking.

Most of Jee's own youth had been directed by a succession of other people who did their utmost to make him feel small and used. It hadn't quite occurred to him up to now that that might happen to princes, too.

"Sir, he does mean the best for you. But some things shouldn't be interfered with. They're yours. Your choices."

He paused when Zuko's hands abruptly stopped moving. The brat didn't say anything, though, so Jee just forged on. "If I can help you make General Iroh understand that, I'll talk to him."

"You'll help me," Zuko repeated, emphasizing every syllable. He'd narrowed his eyes again. "Why would you help me  _now_?"

Jee smiled. "Because that's my choice to make, sir."

"But why?"

Really, was this so hard? "Because I want to, sir."

He blinked, and then Zuko was suddenly right there in his face - he'd rolled from his cross-legged position into a menacing crouch, silently and with rather shocking speed. Jee started before he could remind himself not to flinch. Had he said something wrong?

Zuko bared his teeth in a furious hiss.

" _Why?_  You didn't give a damn before! You want something! Tell me, and  _don't lie!_ "

He started tapping the bottle on the deck plating, as if he was testing its strength, and Jee got a bad feeling that the bottle's strength would be tested on his face if Zuko didn't hear whatever it was that he wanted to hear in the next three seconds.

No. No, this wasn't the way they were going to do this. He wasn't going to put up with violent mood swings or  _threats_  when he was trying so hard to do right by the brat. Maybe the General was too soft-hearted to give Zuko a proper thrashing when he deserved it, but Jee wasn't planning on following that example and help the little shit become even more of a snarling, entitled monster than he already was.

He leaned forward until his face was only inches from Zuko's.

"What I want," he growled, "is for you to stop threatening me whenever I do something you don't like. And I'll help you solve your problems because I want you to stop brooding long enough to let me get  _somewhere_  with you. Starting tonight. You've been playing the tease for three months, and if you make me go back to my cabin without at least a kiss, I will  _hate_  you.  _Sir_."

Zuko blinked.

Jee repeated to himself what he'd just said. He didn't draw back, but only because showing weakness before angry and unpredictable officers was never a good idea. He'd answered the brat's question, and without a single lie, but that had probably been a bit too much truth.

Zuko didn't strike at him, though. He barely even frowned any more than usual.

"If you hate all this so much, why are you bothering?"

Now it was Jee's turn to blink. Why wasn't he getting screamed at?

"If I hate what? Waiting?"

A shrug. Zuko made a vague, wide gesture with his left arm that could have encompassed anything from 'waiting' to 'the world from here to Ba Sing Se'. He'd ducked his head low, and he was rocking back and forth a little on the balls of his feet.

Jee focused on the gentle swaying of the ponytail for a few seconds. It was rather hypnotizing. He wondered if he was having some strange dream in which being absolutely, brutally honest with the prince actually helped.

All right. He could hardly make it worse, anyway. "I'm bothering because I want to work something out with you.  _Sir_. I'm just a man, and I'm sick of waiting until we make port before I can go spend a night with someone young and attractive. There isn't anyone like that on this ship, except you."

It still seemed to be helping. Zuko glared a little, but there wasn't much heat behind it, literally or otherwise.

"You're lying. I'm not."

"Not attractive?" The brat really needed to take a good look at himself during his next shower. "You are. Very. Except for your fa..."

_If you bend him over, you don't have to look at that hideous face. Or perhaps you can put a helmet on him._

Silence.

Jee squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath through his nose. If he rolled to the left, he'd slip through the railing and plummet to his death on the deck. Or he could concentrate and set himself on fire from within. Either way, it would put an end to this horrible moment.

He wasn't like that. He couldn't be.

There was a soft clunk somewhere near his feet, like a bottle being placed quite gently on the warm metal.

"I know it's ugly." Zuko sounded very far away. There was a long pause, long enough for Jee to take another calming breath and concentrate on sensing the prince's chi. It was almost unnaturally calm - in motion, as always, but it was more of a curious fluttering than anything aggressive. Maybe it had something to do with the drink.

"Everyone stares," Zuko murmured, voice full of something almost like wonder. "But no one's ever said it out loud before. Except for Zhao."

The chi in Jee's stomach  _roiled_. He let his head drop down between his knees, opened his mouth, and breathed out hard to relieve the pressure.

After another moment, the warmth that always clung to Zuko drew back. There was a soft thud. He'd sat back down.

"At least you're not lying. Fine. Fair enough, I accept."

Jee looked up. There were dark, dancing spots in front of his eyes, but he could quite clearly see Zuko just sitting there, legs crossed and elbows on his knees, his perpetual glower fixed down and towards the dark void of the sea. He was making short snapping motions with his fingers, as if he was drilling the hand part of a kata. A moment later, it turned out that he was; a krill-fly landed on the edge of the bowl of fire flakes, and the next flick of Zuko's fingers sent out a little tongue of flame that picked the insect off quite neatly. A small soot mark remained on the bowl, though, and Zuko grumbled and rubbed it off.

It was like Jee had said nothing at all in the past few minutes, nothing except perfectly reasonable things.

Now he was really starting to get worried. Had the brat even heard a word of all that? 'I'll help you because it will make you put out faster' didn't sound like a terribly charming bit of motivation to Jee. An understandable motivation, maybe. An honest one, definitely. But that wasn't  _fine_ , or anything remotely like  _fair_. And then Jee had called him ugly in the bargain.

"Sir," he said, trying to sound apologetic but insistent. "If you want to call this off, sir, that's fine. I... won't hate you, I misspoke. I told you, this is your choice."

He didn't add anything like 'but I might snap and kill you in your sleep if you back out on me now'. That probably wouldn't help.

Zuko cocked his head.

"If I say no, can I change my mind later?"

Jee nodded. "Of course, sir."

More staring. The brat really was exceptionally good at focusing on one thing so hard that his gaze felt like a physical weight. Just a little more practice, and he could probably eyeball the Avatar to death if he ever met him.

"Don't tell my Uncle about this. Ever."

"No, Sir." The mere  _idea_.

"Fine, then," Zuko said as he rose to his feet. "A kiss, at least. But not out in the open."

 

(To be continued in part 2)


	4. In which a very special birthday is celebrated, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Directly follows chapter 3, and this scene will be continued in chapter 5, which will take a few weeks to appear. Not four months. I swear.
> 
> A big thank you to jin_fenghuang for the beta! Any errors remaining are my own.

  
He marched past Jee in a flash of red and disappeared into the dark interior of the bridge. It was a moment before Jee could make his muscles catch up with his brain, but then he scrambled to his feet and followed.

"Sir, where are you going?"

Not that he wasn't happy or anything, but he hated feeling like he was  _missing_  things, and...

He really, really had to stop trying to make sense of whatever went on in the brat's head. There obviously wasn't anything in there that was intelligible to uncomplicated peasants like Jee. He should take his own advice and just enjoy what was being offered. Whatever that was.

When he caught up, Zuko was already half into the hatch of the same ladder that Jee had climbed to get up here.

"We're going to the rhino hold. There's no one there."

Ah. All right, he supposed that might sound like a good place to be, if you liked komodo rhinos. Jee definitely didn't. He wasn't afraid of the beasts, not exactly, or at least not very much. They hated him, though. He could think of about a dozen other places on the ship that were also empty of people right now, and far more comfortable.

"Sir, how about..."

Zuko shot him a glower and disappeared down the hatch. Jee sighed and followed. He'd obviously used up some kind of impertinence quota.

The speed at which Zuko shot down the ladder was only slightly below that of free fall, and Jee found himself trying to move faster and at least look like he was keeping up. He might not be of the same famously long-lived stock as Zuko's family, and he might look older than he was even by peasant standards, but he'd be damned if he let some royal brat get the idea that he might be old and slow.

Keeping up with Zuko's dizzyingly fast descent while not losing his grip on the worn, slippery metal of the ladder took so much concentration that he very nearly kicked the brat in the head when they suddenly stopped. As it w as, he only managed to hit the ponytail; Zuko growled and slapped his foot away, but he did jump from the ladder onto the floor so that Jee could climb down and see what had made him pause.

They were in the deck-level corridor now. The door at the end was standing wide open, letting in a cheerful cacophony of rather dreadful music and drunken singing. The men were dancing, too, and it looked exactly as ridiculous as always. Jee watched Cook and Peng waltz past the door, followed at a much slower and far more graceless pace by Shi and Haisu. The first mate had had a bad leg since Ba Sing Se and could only limp along, but he'd clearly drunk enough not to care that he was making a complete idiot of himself, letting Shi bodily pull him around in some horrid parody of something that might once have been a dance.

Zuko followed the pair with his eyes. He seemed to be wondering if laughing would be too childish for a serious sixteen-year-old grown-up. There was a very bright spot of red on his unscarred cheek, and the look in his eyes was soft, almost kind. Maybe he was a tad drunk after all.

Jee leaned over and gave a brief cough to attract Zuko's attention. As soon as the unscarred eye focused on his face, Jee nodded in the general direction of Shi and Haisu. He kept his voice pitched low, although he could probably have bellowed at the top of his lungs without anyone out there hearing him.

"Did you know they're together, sir?"

Zuko frowned. "What?"

"The first mate and pikeman Shi. Together. As in, a little like husband and wife."

Zuko didn't even blink.

"Oh. I know, they fuck in the rhino hold at night."

That  _word_  again. Now Jee was almost certain that Zuko had actually been practicing his big boy talk in the last couple of months. Not in front of the mirror, probably - the brat loathed those so thoroughly that he even chucked people's shaving mirrors overboard when they were left lying around.

Maybe Zuko had gone to practice on his rhino friends in the privacy of the hold. It was hilariously easy to imagine the him standing in front of the rhino pen, arms crossed, snapping out every crude term he'd ever heard the crew use until he could say them all without blushing.

That was just  _adorable_. Jee resisted the urge to pat Zuko on the head, on the grounds that it would be suicidal. Then he realized that he'd failed to register what the brat had actually said.

"Wait. How do you know what they do in the rhino hold?" Haisu and Shi really weren't _that_ obvious, and Zuko couldn't have heard about them from any of the other men. He never talked with them.

Zuko shrugged. "Sometimes when I can't sleep, I go sit with the rhinos. They're warm." He smiled, tenderly, like a child thinking of its favorite hogpuppy.

Then his expression darkened. "And sometimes  _they_  come in," he hissed.

He shot Shi and Haisu a poi sonous glare. The pair of them were still dancing circles around the General and his musiciansf in blissful ignorance.

Jee opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again because he couldn't think of a single non-suicidal thing to say. That horrible little  _critter_.

"You  _spy_  on them?"

Zuko glared at him.

"Not on purpose!" It was probably the drink, but he was a lot redder in the face than a few moments ago.

"Still, sir. You should have told them you were there."

A half-hearted shrug. "It's my ship. I can be wherever I like without telling anyone. Besides, they shouldn't have been fucking where anyone could see them."

The rhino hold was hardly that much of a public location. The only ones who ever went in there where the rhino riders. The evil beasts tended to low and growl at anyone else, except Haisu, who probably smelled enough like Shi by now for the rhinos to tolerate him.

This was just wrong. But also funny, in a slightly unnerving kind of way.

"How long have you been watching them, sir?"

"I don't re..." Zuko blinked once, twice, and quickly rearranged his face into its customary scowl. It seemed to take some serious effort. He shot Jee a look of deep, deep mistrust. "I don't have to tell you anything. Stop asking me questions."

Jee smiled. "Yes, sir."  _You naughty little bastard_. "I'm sorry. Let's go."

Well. At least that explained why the brat seemed to have some idea of what he was asking for. Part of Jee felt obliged to warn Zuko's victims, but he wasn't sure he could do it without either screaming or laughing himself to death. Maybe it was best to just forget he'd ever found out about this. Haisu had been through a lot of frightening experiences and could probably handle the knowledge that the brat prince had been watching him while his pants were around his ankles, but Shi was a little high-strung at the best of times. He might jump overboard.

They descended one more level and crossed the engine room to reach the door to the rhino hold. Zuko flipped up the pin that locked the hatch, wheeled it open with one hard tug, and pushed the door inwards.

He started shooting flames at the lanterns inside the hold before Jee could offer to do it. It took him three tries to hit the farthest lamp, and Jee wondered how he might convince the brat that bending and drinking were two activities that should never be combined. Zuko probably wouldn't believe it until he'd accidentally set himself alight at least twice.

This part of the hold was divided in two by a very sturdy fence that penned in their four rhinos, leaving a spacious area along the side of the hull where they stored the hay that the animals devoured in massive quantities every day. Jee remained by the door to the rhino hold and let Zuko amble towards his sharp-horned, sharp-clawed, and sharp-toothed friends by himself. It was probably his imagination, but he thought he could see the rhinos' egg-sized eyes glowering reddishly at him. They didn't start stamping or lowing, though, like they usually did whenever Jee was forced to enter this room for some reason. Perhaps they felt reassured because Zuko had come as well. The idea that the brat prince was a calming influence on  _anything_  was a little too absurd to consider, though.

Zuko reached the pen and stopped in front of the young rhino cow that he always rode whenever they went to scout on land. It seemed to be his favorite, as far as he had it in him to have favorite things. Jee wasn't good at telling the rhinos apart, but he certainly knew this one: it was the smallest of the four, had very long and wickedly sharp horns, and always tried to disembowel him whenever he made the mistake of entering its line of sight while it was out and about. Either Zuko was incapable of controlling it, or he enjoyed watching Jee scuttle away from the beast. Probably the latter.

Jee folded his arms and tried to make himself comfortable against the doorjamb, but it wasn't easy. The rhinos were a rather overpowering presence.

"Sir, are we staying here?"

"Yes."

Zuko reached through the metal grating -Jee winced, visions of severed arms flashing before his eyes- and started scratching his rhino's snout. It rumbled and head-butted the fence, making the floor tremble.

Jee wondered what the General would say if he knew Zuko actually slept among these creatures. A normal-sized rhino could crush a man's torso just by standing on him. Never mind that the beasts could rip through bone with one swipe of their claws - if one happened to roll over while Zuko was next to it, they'd be lucky to recover any part of him thicker than a finger.

Worrying about Zuko was the General's job, though. A mothering presence was the last thing Jee wanted to be in Zuko's eyes, and the brat was a full adult now. He didn't need any tut-tutting about being too trusting of large monsters. For now, at least, he seemed to be perfectly safe. The rhino had dropped onto its side and was thumping its tail on the floor while making what Jee assumed were happy rhino noises. It sounded like the engine of the skiff had before Jee managed to fix it up properly.

Zuko sunk to his knees to keep the beast's head in reach. He was holding on to the fence with his free hand and had his feet planted slightly apart for balance. Jee spent a blissful few moments admiring the way his arm muscles bunched and his silk breeches stretched taut between his legs.

"Lieutenant," Zuko said, not taking his eyes off his pet monster. "What are you doing over there?"

"I don't like rhinos, sir. Especially not that one. It's tried to kill me at least a dozen times."

Zuko shot him a rather strange look. He wasn't smiling, but somehow, he looked almost... merry?

"Mai is a very nice rhino. You must have provoked her."

Jee felt his eyebrows rise entirely on their own. "I didn't know it had a name."

The look on Zuko's face said loud and clear that he thought Jee was an idiot.

" _She_. They all have names."

"Well, I never did a thing to  _her_. She's a menace. I can see why you two get along so well, sir."

"She likes me," Zuko murmured.

Jee thought of the last time this very nice rhino had tried to separate him from his insides. It had happened on the exact day when he left Zuko that snarly note about being too stupid to read calendars.

"Yes, sir. As I said, she's a menace."

"Just get over here."

Now Zuko was starting to sound impatient. It was probably best to obey before he managed to work himself into some low-level sulk and changed his mind about this. Jee took a deep breath and began to walk towards the rhino pen, trying to feel like this room was part of his ship and he did indeed belong here.

The very nice rhino went alarmingly still. Jee stopped walking and held his breath.

Zuko's face was turned away, but Jee could have sworn he heard a snigger.

Nasty little brat. There were still about four steps between Jee and the rhino pen - far enough away to stay out of reach of any horns, and to get the hell out of the room if the very nice rhino decided to take a stroll right through the fence. They did that. Haisu complained about the monsters breaking loose and destroying things in the hold at least once a month. It seemed that they mostly stayed inside their pen out of some sort of consideration towards Shi, who got flung on latrines duty whenever he let his beasts escape.

"I think this is close enough, sir."

Zuko snorted, but he did give his rhino one last pat on the snout and uncoiled from his crouch. The movement wasn't as smooth as usual; he was definitely swaying a little. As long as he wasn't really drunk, though, some degree of tipsiness would just help him relax. Probably.

He took a few quite careful steps towards Jee, and didn't stop until they were actually bumping toes. The air around him was so thick with teenage bravado that Jee could have cut it with a knife.

"Close enough, Lieutenant?"

It was  _very_  close, much closer than he'd ever been, and it occurred to Jee that he'd never gotten quite such a good look at the brat's face before. All the previous times Zuko had invaded Jee's personal space, he'd been yelling or snarling, and Jee really hadn't paid much attention to what he looked like. And he was rather near-sighted, so he'd never caught many details when Zuko was at a distance, which was nearly all the time.

The dark red stain across Zuko's face was familiar and unremarkable, but now that he was standing near enough for Jee to feel his breath, it hit him how bad the scar really was. It was amazing that the eye functioned at all. Jee had seen worse burns; he had one across the back of his own left leg that was larger than this. But on a face, on such a  _young_  face, the mark seemed three times as appalling as it would have anywhere else. It looked too alien, rising up out of otherwise normal-looking skin like some kind of parasitic growth. Its ragged edges seemed to reach out across Zuko's cheek and forehead, as if the dark, knotted mass was still trying to spread and swallow his head whole, like it had almost swallowed up the misshapen eye. It had gotten infected early on, Jee knew, and it was still the exact same shade as rotten meat.

The sheer, brazen ugliness of it was breathtaking. It was much worse from up close.

_If you bend him over, you don't have to look at..._

Jee swallowed. No. He wasn't like that. He  _wasn't_.

But he must have been staring a little too openly, because Zuko's eyebrow was starting to curl into a suspicious frown.

"What are you going to do?"

Jee tore his eyes away from the scar and managed to smile a little. He wasn't like that.

"Just kiss you. Maybe a bit more. That depends. If you want me to stop and go away, just tell me."

"Fine," Zuko said.

"Tell me with words," Jee amended. "For the sake of Agni and all his descendants, sir, please don't try to bend when you've been drinking."

One corner of Zuko's mouth twitched.

"I'm a prince. I  _am_  a descendant of Agni."

Jee stared at him. Had that been a joke?

He decided to risk a yes. "I think you might be adopted, sir."

Zuko seemed to sober up entirely from one moment to the next. All color bled from his face, making the dark stain stand out worse than ever, and alarmingly  _aware_  glint appeared in his eyes.

"I'm the son of Fire Lord Ozai, and don't you forget it, Lieutenant."

Oh, rhino balls. "It was just a joke, sir."

"I  _hate_  jokes," Zuko growled. The corners of his mouth were starting to curl down.

Jee clasped his hands behind his back and made an effort to look much more contrite than he felt. He wasn't about to let the brat's lack of a sense of humor ruin his evening. "Yes, sir. I spoke of out turn. My apologies."

Zuko glared at him for a moment longer, then heaved a very, very irritated sigh.

"If you're done being  _funny_ , Lieutenant, maybe we can get on with it?"

He had that look on his face that he always wore when Jee wasn't following orders fast enough or well enough, the one that said he was just going to do whatever he wanted done himself because Jee was an unreliable and lazy no-good.

"Yes, sir."

As soon as he said it, the rhino behind Zuko  _bellowed_. A wave of hot, moist rhino breath slapped Jee across the face.

It stank. Jee squeezed his eyes and mouth shut as hard as he could. When he looked up again, the black beast was staring right at him over Zuko's shoulder. It didn't look nearly as herbivorous as everyone said rhinos were.

"Sir. Can we move away from... Mai... a bit?"

Zuko grinned. The glint in his eyes was pure, gleeful malice.

"No need to be scared, Lieutenant. She'll only attack you if I tell her to."

Jee stared at him as things began to click together in his mind.

Oh, the little rotter was  _clever_  when he tried. He'd deliberately lured Jee down here into his own familiar terrain, a terrain that also happened to contain some very dangerous guardians that were entirely on his side. He knew perfectly well that Jee hated the monsters.

Zuko was still smirking, and Jee fought down the urge to grin right back. A challenge, was it? Did he really think he could intimidate Jee just by taking him out of his comfort zone?

Two could play that game. It could even be fun. The brat seemed to have figured out what he wanted, more or less, but he was  _dithering_. He clearly had no idea how to initiate something as non-violent as a simple kiss. But he was perfectly comfortable starting fights, and surely he remembered what roughhousing with his little noble friends had been like. Roughhousing was really just fighting with the ultimate purpose of kissing. Even Zuko could pull that off.

Jee took a few steps backwards without breaking eye contact, and Zuko followed as if he was being pulled along by an invisible string. That nasty grin was still stuck on his face. Stupid brat. Jee drew him back a few more paces, until they were nearly in the doorway again.

Then he turned, pushed the hatch shut, and dodged around Zuko to walk back into the room. Mai glowered at him, but Jee ignored her. He wasn't going to be scared off by some... Were komodo rhinos a species of bovine? He had no idea. He hated animals that hadn't ascended to their proper sausage form.

"Could you stand there for a moment, sir?"

Zuko had turned in place. His smirk was gone.

"What are you doing?"

"Just a moment, sir." A few hard tugs, and his belt and skirt guard came loose. He dropped them where he was standing.

"Lieutenant." Zuko closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He shook his head for a moment, as if trying to get water out of his ears. "Lieutenant, come back over here  _now_."

"Just taking my armor off, sir," Jee said. His shoulder guard landed on the floor plating with a metallic clatter, and he began to jerk on the ties of his right shoulder pad.

"What for?," Zuko snapped, as if undressing was some kind of unusual behavior in these kinds of situations.

Jee licked his lips, and Zuko's frown melted.

"I need to take it off because you'd be very uncomfortable in a minute otherwise. Sir," Jee said. He ripped the left pad off too quickly and felt one of the worn ties snap.

" _What?_ "

Now Zuko was starting to sound very testy. Jee supposed it was a miracle he'd been patient for even the fifteen seconds it had taken him to do away with the armor. Was it necessary to take off his arm braces? No, the lacing would take at least half a minute to undo, and he had no money for replacements if he burned through the cords. He wasn't likely to accidentally grind the braces into a sensitive area, anyway.

He looked up. Zuko was still standing with his back to the closed hatch, less than a foot of space between his body and the metal plating. Perfect.

"Hold on," Jee said. He stepped forward, bent his legs a bit, and grabbed the brat around the middle.

Zuko made a sound that was half confused, half angry, but Jee took his time to brace himself and tighten his arms around Zuko's waist properly. The brat wasn't that much smaller than him anymore, really, and he was packed with heavy muscle. This was going to take a good deal of leverage.

Zuko  _hit_  him, the little rotter - a stinging, open-handed slap on Jee's unprotected shoulder.

"Lieutenant, what is the meaning of thi-"

The word turned into a very satisfying squeak when Jee launched him right up into the air and let go.

He hadn't managed to lift Zuko up quite as high as he'd hoped, but it was high enough; he had plenty of time to transfer both hands from the brat's middle to the back of his upper legs, grab on, and throw his own weight forward to slam them both into the door.

" _Oomph!_ "

It was a very short distance to go, and the impact was hardly stronger than the slap Zuko had just dealt him. If it hurt, the brat probably didn't even notice. He crashed head-first into the deck during training nearly every day, and that never seemed to slow him down any. Zuko was one of those lucky people whose bodies seemed to be filled with iron instead of human bone.

Jee could just have picked him up and lifted him against the door, really, but that wouldn't have made half this much of an impression. And it wouldn't have surprised Zuko enough to make him grab at Jee like he was the last bit of support on earth. And he wouldn't have wrapped his legs around Jee's middle on pure, blind instinct, and Lord Agni, that felt  _good_. His thighs were exactly the perfect combination of hard muscle, youthful softness, and just a little too much heat that made trained young Fire folk so delectable to touch.

And he felt like that all over, too. The muscles under Jee's fingers sloped up, and if he spread them just a little wider, he'd be holding the brat by the buttocks. They were plastered together from groin to chest. Jee took a moment to bury his nose in the hollow of Zuko's throat and just  _inhale_. Ah, yes - sea and smoke and coal, and just a hint of sweat. It hadn't been a hot day, though, and the brat hadn't done anything physically taxing. Nerves?

Zuko certainly didn't seem to know where to put his hands. His fingers scrabbled in a completely random pattern over the plating of the door, then up Jee's arms, to his ribs, then back to his arms and over his shoulders. It was like being walked on by Lei's pet rat. His heart was hammering so hard that Jee could feel it even through the layers of cloth between them.

All speech seemed to have left him; he just gaped, eyes and mouth wide open.

"Relax, sir. Here goes," Jee murmured against the brat's good ear.

He let his skin heat up a bit more and shifted his grip so he was holding Zuko closer, not tighter, but warmer and closer - _it's fine, if you know how to give a big hug, you know how to do this_ \- and looked him in the eyes while he pressed their mouths together.

For a few very long moments, there was no response at all. Jee had just enough time to start fearing that he'd made some terrible mistake and was about to get his face bitten off.

But Zuko's hands had stopped wandering and grabbed him by the collar, and they held him in place when he started to pull back, on purpose,  _definitely_  on purpose. Whatever was going through his head, he wasn't going to give up right away just because he couldn't quite follow yet.

_Good boy. Good boy_ , Jee thought. He couldn't say it while he was busy kissing, but he could hum it, and he was almost entirely sure that he felt Zuko make some kind of sound back.

The brat tasted of plum wine and more smoke. It was a firebender taste, deliciously familiar, and Jee licked along Zuko's lips to lap up as much as he could without forcing the brat to open up.

Would he...? Jee pressed in just a little closer and  _pushed_. Zuko opened his mouth at once, easily, like he'd never meant to do anything but let Jee's tongue slide in, along soft flesh and smooth, sharp teeth. It was warm and slick and _good_.

And there was so much left of him to touch and taste. So very much, and Jee had all the time in the world to explore. They were going to be on this ship forever. He could take just a little bite every night, draw this out over  _years_ , if he wanted. It would be like saving the amazaiku sugar animals that his mother used to buy him only during the harvest festival. He always made them last for weeks, hardly daring to take more than a lick or two every day.

Oh, Zuko would hate being made to go slow, but he'd learn to savor the anticipation. Jee would teach him.

He hadn't quite meant to roll his hips into Zuko's, but he did it anyway, quite gently - he couldn't help it. Just a little nudge.

Zuko's eyes popped wide open. He snapped his legs tighter around Jee's waist, like a hippo-crab snatching prey, and -  _oof_. The brat was  _strong_. The grip of his thighs felt powerful enough to squeeze all the air right out of Jee, especially when there was no armor to protect his sides.

It was starting to hurt.

"Sir, you're choking me."

Zuko just stared at him. The lopsided face was cycling through expressions so fast that they were impossible to follow. There was a lot of shock and surprise, but after a few moments, anger seemed to be winning.

Oh. Maybe this hadn't been such a fun idea after all.

Jee concentrated on his hands for a moment, heating them up a little as he started to knead the underside of Zuko's legs.

"Relax a little, sir. I won't drop you. You're fine."

But when Zuko's face finally settled, it was on the emotion Jee had been dreading - pure outrage. The little troll squeezed  _harder_.

"You threw me against a  _wall_ ," Zuko hissed. A flurry of sparks bit into Jee's face, and he had to work to fight down thoughts of his sideburns catching fire.

It was a door, actually, but... Oh, whatever. He was in trouble.

"Yes, sir," Jee said. He honestly couldn't think of another answer. It wasn't like he could undo the action, and apologizing never helped when Zuko was in a snit. It just made him madder.

"Sir, listen..."

Zuko snarled. Jee wondered if he'd ever even heard of 'listening'.

"Don't tell me what to do! What makes you think..."

"Sir, let me explain..."

Oh, to Koh with it all.

"...that you can just  _touch_  me as if -mmmph!"

The last bit of Zuko's breath ended up somewhere in the back of Jee's throat, and yes,  _there_  was the taste of fire he'd been hoping for. It was sharp and tart and lingering, but light, like fruit. Yuzu, maybe. There was a hint of clingy sweetness in it somewhere, but that had more to do with the brat's age than his fire, probably. Jee couldn't remember ever kissing an older bender who still tasted sweet.

He hadn't had yuzu juice in ages. It was  _delicious_.

He hummed into Zuko's mouth and rubbed his hands up and down the legs still crushing his sides, guiding himself by the raised seam of the breeches. They were very, very soft, and his fire-roughened fingertips slid over the fabric with no resistance at all. It was real silk. Maybe the General had gotten his nephew something princely to wear for his very special birthday.

Something in his head lurched at the thought of Zuko's uncle. But for once in his life, the brat made himself helpful and did the most distracting thing he could have done in that moment - he relaxed, he actually  _relaxed_ , and let Jee take a deep gulp of breath as the vice-like grip on his middle loosened.

Zuko didn't give him time to adjust, though. His fingers scrabbled down the back of Jee's shirt, hand over hand, until his arms gained enough leverage that he could hoist himself up with a grunt.

It gave him a  _very_  firm grip on Jee's head and shoulders, and enough height advantage that he could push his mouth down instead of having to let Jee control the kiss.

Jee let him, opening up - _come on in, sir, the water's fine_ \- and then Zuko tightened his legs  _again_ , but Jee hadn't even begun to get mad over it when he realized there were no hipbones in the way anywhere with this new position. Nothing but a few layers of very thin cloth between the skin of his stomach and a hot, twitching erection.

He sighed with pleasure.

_Hello there. See? This is what you get when you trust your elders to know what they're doing. Did it have to be so difficult?_

He took a deep breath and fed it into the chi stirring below his midriff. Zuko sucked in his stomach against the sudden pulse of heat, and Jee followed, with a thrust of his hips that was very, very deliberate this time.

Zuko yelped and released a shuddering breath when Jee drew back. His thighs gave Jee an almost gentle squeeze, as if they were sorry he had to go.

Then he  _moaned_ , and Jee couldn't really do anything but give him what he so obviously wanted. He began to grind up, steadily now, and kept their faces close so that small bursts of chi that Zuko released with every panting breath could lick over and past his own lips. It was probably his imagination, but he always thought fire born from arousal tasted different than fire raised in the course of normal, aggressive bending. There was something tangible about it, something  _sticky_ , a bit like the difference between plain water and saliva.

It slid down his throat to feed the chi that was just beginning to really churn in his own stomach. From the ache building in his lower back, he knew he probably wouldn't manage to get going himself until he put Zuko's weight elsewhere. But he'd only have to shift a little to put more of the load onto the door instead of on himself, and anyway, this was good for now. More than good. He could keep this up for a long time, and Zuko sounded so happy.

He thrust his tongue in time with the small movements of his hips, lapping up as much of the slick fire as he could while Zuko's tongue tried to tangle wit h his. The brat wasn't moving with him, exactly; he seemed far too busy kissing to pay much attention to what the rest of his body was doing. That was fine. He was a beginner, Jee could pay attention for him.

He grabbed  _up_  with both hands, let his fingers dig into the hard muscle of Zuko's buttocks, and yanked him forward into his next thrust.

"Ah!"

Zuko bucked upwards against him, hard enough to separate their mouths for a moment, but Jee snatched at the seat of his pants and jerked him back down without even thinking about it.

"Stay  _here_ ," he growled, or tried to. He didn't have much air to work with, and his voice cracked in the most embarrassing way.

If Zuko noticed, he didn't bother to gloat, or even open his eyes. He missed Jee's lips entirely and pushed a wet, open-mouthed kiss somewhere halfway up his cheek. Before Jee could think of helping him, Zuko had already slid right down the edge of his sideburns as if they were a trail to follow, and then another hot rush of chi flooded his mouth.

He let it in, let it mingle with the fire in the back of his own throat, and pushed it back hard. Too hard - he could feel,  _hear_  Zuko swallow convulsively, and then a small moan of loss escaped him when a hand folded over his forehead and shoved him back.

Zuko was flushed and panting. His good eye was open very wide again.

"Are you firebending?" he gasped.

"You could feel that?" Now, that was a bit of a surprise. Given how raw and erratic his bending tended to be, Jee hadn't really expected the brat to pick up on something as subtle as a tiny extra push of chi.

Zuko nodded, but his eye had narrowed in suspicion. "What were you doing?"

"Nothing.  _Really._  Stop glaring at me." Zuko didn't, but he also didn't do anything worse than glare, so Jee assumed that he probably wasn't in any acute danger. "Can you feel the chi of other benders when they're close? "

"Sometimes. When I concentrate. But I wasn't concentrating now, you did something."

" _No_ , I didn't. Fire comes from the breath. It's much easier to sense someone else's chi when you're breathing air straight from their mouth."

"Oh. Right."

"Try to breathe my chi in, if you can. You'll like it. It's..."

The sheer intimacy of sharing fire with another person was impossible to put into words. He let his head settle down on Zuko's shoulder, just for a moment, to catch his breath and his wits. The salt-and-smoke scent was much stronger now. Zuko was sweating, enough that the fabric under Jee's cheek and fingers was getting clammy. He'd have to remember to tell the brat not to heat himself up quite this much. At least not this early.

Later. He could think about it when he was no longer kneading his commander's buttocks.

"Chi is... I couldn't say that it has a flavor, but it feels like it should have one. It has a texture."

Zuko blinked slowly. "What sort of texture? Like food?"

"Like drink, with most people. Fire isn't heavy. It depends, every bender feels different."

"What does my chi taste like?"

"Yours still changes, because you're young." Or because he didn't have his bending under proper control, but that explanation wasn't likely to go over well. "It feels... tastes... like fruit most of the time. Yuzu juice. With honey."

"Oh."

He seemed to think about it for a moment, but if yuzu had any sort of meaning for him, he didn't seem to want to dwell on it.

"And yours?"

"My chi? You'll find out, I expect." He'd been told it was like sour wine, either of the good or the bad kind, depending on his mood. Zuko had probably never even had sour wine.

"Let's try. Breathe," he whispered against Zuko's open mouth, and Zuko did - he gasped, once, twice, and the second time, Jee felt a definite tug at his chi.

Before Jee could ask him if he'd tasted it, Zuko grabbed him by the ears, crushed their mouths together, and  _sucked_.

It was unexpected, and Jee didn't break away quite quickly enough to prevent most of the air being pulled right out of his throat in a hot rush. It left a shocking chill in his mouth, as if he'd bitten a piece of ice.

His teeth ached with it. Ow,  _ow_.

Jee drew his head back before Zuko could pull that little stunt again, and he barely even registered that the brat let him go without protest. Zuko was shaking, as if he was trying to cough, but Jee honestly didn't give a damn at the moment. He freed one hand from under the brat and covered his mouth so he could keep in the fresh supply of blessedly hot chi that was already rising up from his stomach.

It was quite a while before he managed to warm up enough to open his eyes and just  _glare_. He wasn't quite ready to open his mouth again.

Zuko's head had fallen back against the door. His skin was flus hed bright red from his neck all the way up his skull, and he was breathing very hard and very fast. His eyes were squeezed closed, but there was wetness pooling in the corner of the good eye. Just from the look of him, Jee would have guessed that he'd just taken a massive gulp of something extremely alcoholic.

"Sir?"

Zuko coughed a few times and made a visibly taxing effort to open his eyes. His scarred eyelid blinked only once for every two flutters of the good one. Jee had never noticed that before.

"What did I do?" he rasped, blinking furiously. One-two, one-two, one-two. It was almost endearing.

"Don't gulp like that," Jee said. "You don't just  _take_  chi. It's rude. And cold."

"I want more." Zuko's voice was slurred, as if he was actually drunk now instead of barely even tipsy.

Jee rubbed a thumb across his lips, along his jaw, and down the pulse point in his neck. It raced under the roughened pad of his finger. He pressed down, just a little.

"I'll give it to you. Really," he said when Zuko's eyebrow began to draw down. "Don't be greedy, there's plenty more where that came from. You'll figure out how to do it properly. Just don't be greedy."

"I  _want_ ," Zuko began, but Jee cut him off with another kiss.

This time he tried to go slower, slow enough so that Zuko could concentrate on the chi flows. Jee lifted both hands and folded them over the back of Zuko's head, entwining his fingers so he could cradle the shaved skull. Its stark, smooth nakedness had always seemed just a bit repellent: it made the scar look even more prominent and overpowering than it was in and of itself, and the ponytail only emphasized that there was no hair where there should be. Only people in illustrations of story scrolls looked normal with that kind of hair.

But the skin under Jee's fingers didn't feel too smooth or abnormal in any way. It was rough and warm and damp with sweat, and the bone underneath was surprisingly uneven and bumpy. Jee rubbed his thumbs up and down absently, letting the edge of his nails rasp along barely-there stubble. He could get used to this.

Zuko tried to copy the gesture. His fingers slid through Jee's sideburns a bit too quickly and caught on the shell of his ear on one side, but he managed to settle his hands without further mishaps and without pulling any hair.

Jee licked an extra-warm burst of fire into his mouth as a reward.  _Well done._

He ran his tongue along the row of smooth teeth in Zuko's lower jaw, front to back, until he found the gap where he'd knocked away Zuko's tooth during their aborted attempt at a boxing lesson. When he pushed the tip of his tongue up and into the hole in the gums, Zuko jerked against him, so hard that their teeth clicked together and Jee had to draw back for a second.

"Does it hurt?" Jee swiped his thumb across the brat's jaw. He'd hoped the spot would only be sensitive.

Zuko shrugged.

"It's fine. Do that again," he ordered, with a very insistent tug on Jee's hair.

He obeyed, and Zuko  _shivered_. His fingers rasped along the back of Jee's neck, where the hair had been shorn just two days ago. It made Jee's spine curl, and that movement made him aware of the whining ache in his back and the tension in his legs.

It was getting bad. He was trembling, and yet he was hard as well, almost painfully so. He hadn't even noticed over the straining pull on his muscles and the overwhelmingly  _there_  presence of the prince, twined around him and sucking in his fire like it was warm milk.

Well. If there was ever a time to put all the little princes down on their feet and let them go to their beds for the night, this was it. If they went on now, Jee wasn't quite sure he'd manage to stop if Zuko changed his mind halfway through.

Apparently, Zuko had either noticed his erection -quite probable, it was hard to miss, pressed up against his thigh- or sensed that Jee was hesitating. He reached up just a bit higher until his fingers found longer hair. Then he  _gripped_ and yanked Jee's head back and forth a couple of times, hard enough to send small spikes of pain crawling across his skull.

For a moment, Jee felt like a misbehaving hogpuppy being shaken by the scruff of its neck.

"You have a lot of nerve, Lieutenant," Zuko rasped. His voice was lower than usual.

"So I'm told, sir."

"Where are you going with this?"

"I was trying to give you a birthday present, sir."

Zuko's single eyebrow started creeping up, and Jee had to work hard not to grin. Zuko had such a  _strange_  face. It was almost like there were two different people behind it, each operating one half.

He really should mention that they could stop here.

"Would you like some more?" he said.

From the way Zuko's eyes lit up, that was a very silly question. He looked much like Jee expected he'd once looked whenever his mother announced it was time to go buy his yearly amazaiku sugar animal.

The less agreeable Zuko hiding behind the half-face was obviously making an effort to stay in control, though. "Couldn't you ask before throwing me against a wall?"

"Birthday presents are supposed to arrive as a surprise, sir."

"I hate surprises," Zuko growled.

If the throbbing hardness against Jee's stomach was any indication, the brat was getting angry more out of habit than anything else. His breath was still coming much quicker than usual, and his thighs were starting to shake a little.

"Permission to speak plainly, sir."

"Go ahead. Why not, you've already thrown me against a wall."

Dear spirits, had he ever even  _heard_  of just letting things go?

"Sir, if we're going to go on, I need you to stop arguing and work with me here. I'm trying to help you." He really was, this time. "Just relax and do as I do. You did fine with the kissing. More than fine."

Zuko blinked at the compliment, but he didn't look very mollified. He pushed his shoulders back against the door so there was more space between their upper bodies, crossed his arms, and scowled ferociously. It was the exact same belligerent posture he assumed whenever the General was lecturing him on a mistake in his bending.

And he was managing it while he was three feet above the floor, sitting on someone's hands, and still pushing a raging hard-on into Jee's groin. Whatever his many faults, he really was an amazing creature sometimes.

"Do as you do, Lieutenant? Should I throw you against a wall, then? Is that  _fun_?"

"Sir, give me a chance." Please. He'd say please if he had to. "I did promise I would teach you things. I meant it."

Zuko stared at him. He swallowed a few times. Was he still nervous? Scared? Jee wished there was some polite way in which to cover up the scar again, so he could actually figure out what the brat's face was saying.

"Sir, do you want out? We can try again some other time."

Zuko's lip curled.

"No.  _Now_ ," he snapped, with all the absolute finality of  _I will capture the Avatar_.

Jee thought of the way Zuko screamed at the General at least twice a week to teach him the next set of firebending kata  _now_ , and was overcome by the sudden and quite alarming realization that Zuko was also going to be exactly that annoying a student when it came to lessons in lewd behavior.

Agni have mercy. What had he gotten himself into?

Maybe all this hostility towards teachers was just a bad habit brought on by years of learning from the General. The old man had always been too tender-hearted to just put the brat over his knee every once in a while, and he never really pushed back when Zuko misbehaved. Maybe Jee could figure out a way to prod him into being more patient... And maybe he could find the Avatar while he was at it, too. The brat just didn't have it in him to wait for anything, and how likely was it that he'd be prepared to give patience a try on this particular subject?

Zuko really did seem nervous, though. He was licking his lips.

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing complicated, sir. I'm going to kiss you, and while you practice that chi-breathing trick you just learned, I'll rub against you until you come. Like this," he murmured, with another gentle roll of his hips.

Zuko had obviously been anticipating it this time, but he still shivered, and his scowl eased up a little.

"Hmm. And after that?"

Jee only just kept from rolling his eyes. If he was any judge, he'd have to carry the brat to his cabin when this was over.

"Sir, if you're still conscious enough for an "after that", I'll do whatever the hell you like."

Zuko stared at him for a few moments, obviously mulling it over. He looked decidedly unimpressed.

"It doesn't sound like much. We don't even take any clothes off?"

_It doesn't sound like..._

"You didn't even know how to  _kiss_ ," Jee said, not even trying to keep the indignation out of his voice. "How can you have any idea what..."

He trailed off when Zuko glanced up at the ceiling with a vaguely guilty expression.

Ah. Right. Jee took a few moments to wish that Haisu and Shi would accidentally dance themselves over the railing and into the ocean. And that there would be tiger-sharks.

"Listen, sir. The first mate and pikeman Shi have been joined at the hip since before they ever set foot on this ship. They're men with many years of experience fooling around in holds and pretending that nobody knows what they're doing. Whatever you saw..." Zuko opened his mouth, but Jee quickly raised a finger. "...and I imagine you saw quite a bit, don't tell me about it..."

Zuko glowered at the finger as if he was about to bite it off. Jee lowered it.

"...Sorry, sir. You'll get to try whatever you want. I promise. But let me get you started with some easy things. They're more than satisfying enough, especially in the beginning, and you'll have plenty of time to work your way up to whatever else you want to try."

"I don't want to wait. I want to fuck. Now. I can do it."

That  _word_.

"It's not waiting, it's working up to it. Believe me, you'll have much more fun if you go in already knowing what you like."

Jee really wasn't going to take the brat to any sort of advanced class before Zuko had learned a thing or two about cooperation. And not interrupting every ten damned seconds. "Think of it as bending training, sir. The stronger your basics are, the better you are at advanced kata."

"Yeah. That makes sense."

Jee breathed a quiet sigh of relief. He'd really never thought of that comparison until just now, but it was apt enough, he supposed.

"Are we good, sir?"

Zuko sighed. "I've never seen the first mate throw pikeman Shi against a wall."

There was definitely something wrong with him. No human teenage boy could possibly be this good at carrying on with some kind of completely irrelevant little grudge while he had a hard-on and someone offering to take care of it.

Jee took a deep breath and concentrated on not sounding like he was talking to a particularly dim-witted student.

"That's because the first mate has a bad leg. He can't support the weight of a full-grown man like that. And before you ask, it wouldn't work the other way around, because the first mate is a large and heavy man and pikeman Shi isn't strong enough to lift him. Let alone throw him against a wall. Now will you  _please_  stop mentioning the bloody wall-throwing? It really wasn't all that spectacular, and I'm sorry I scared you. I didn't mean to."

"You didn't  _scare_  me! I just hate surprises!"

"Oh, for the sake of..." He shook his head. No, no, not helping. " _Sir_. The sooner we start, the sooner you'll be getting your fuck. If you keep criticizing every move I make, it'll take us a year to get there. All right?"

" _Fine_. Get me started, then."

Jee moved in to kiss him, but Zuko gripped hair again, with exactly enough strength for it to hurt  _just_  right.

The fingers of his other hand rasped through the short hairs at the base of Jee's skull, five pin-points of heat drawing a curve along the back of his neck and the tender skin at the side of his throat.

"It better be worth the wait, Lieutenant."

Jee leaned in and pressed a soft, chaste kiss just below the scar.

"I promise. When we  _fuck_..." He rolled the term around in his mouth, and it tasted exactly as good as Zuko's fire had, "...you'll be completely sober for it, it won't be up against a wall, and it will take  _hours_."

Zuko bared his teeth, and the sides of his mouth curled up in a strange, fierce, almost triumphant not-quite-smile. There were sparks in the back of his throat.

His tongue crept to the side and  _wriggled_  in the gap between his teeth.

"When we fuck,  _who_?"

"Sir," Jee said, and Zuko swooped in and swallowed the breath behind the word.

 

(tbc)


	5. In which a very special birthday is celebrated, part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First things first: many thanks to everyone who reads this fic, and especially to everyone who reviewed! In return, please [have a sketch](http://fanficforensics.deviantart.com/#/d473b0t) of our heroes and Mai the rhino, who appears to be the most popular character of the story.
> 
> This chapter is a direct continuation of the last scene of chapter 4, so you may want to give that one a quick look before reading on here. Remember that I said chapter 3 turned into a giant three-part monster and this was going to be the final part? Wrong! This is now part three of a four-part monster. Most long-winded and protracted make-out session to ever burden the internets, and it would have been half again as long if beta hadn't pointed out that Zuko is sixteen and just not likely to last that long.
> 
> So, here's a shorter in-between chapter, and part four of the monster chapter will be her e in a couple of days when it's out of beta. Then we're going back to normal chapters like at the beginning. Please forgive the lack of length-wise balance compared with the first chapters. This just... happened. Thanks for the help, Jin! Any errors remaining are my own.

  
Jee crushed Zuko against the door and kissed him breathless, blowing delicate licks of flame into his mouth whenever he remembered to. It seemed like Zuko was even figuring out how to toss them back. Jee could feel him curl his tongue left and right, trying to intercept the warm chi and turn it around, back the way it had come from.

"It's like kemari football," Zuko blurted when Jee drew away for a bit of fresh air.

Fresh air in the rhino hold turned out to taste not so very fresh, but the high color and almost cheerful look on Zuko's face made up for the disappointment. Jee smiled.

"That's right. Keep the ball in the air," he murmured, leaning in for another kiss. He dug his fingers deeper into the hard muscle of Zuko's buttocks and tilted his hips up, looking for the best angle to grind their erections together.

They were probably making a right spectacle of themselves for the stupid rhinos. It had been a long time since Jee had had anyone to touch, and he was being too eager, just a bit too grabby and a bit too hasty. Zuko was mostly copying whatever move Jee made, and he clearly hadn't even begun to master dividing his attention between kissing and thrusting his hips. But he moved like he was going to get this right or die trying, with the kind of genuine _eagerness_ that he never displayed for anything except learning new bending moves that might help him defeat the Avatar. He  _wanted_  this.

It had never occurred to Jee that it might feel good to have that fierce determination directed at himself for a change. Agni, it was  _good_ , and he was going to draw this out as long as he could possibly manage and he was never going to stop.

Until the General murdered him, of course. Jee had few illusions about what this would look like to Zuko's surrogate parent. A grown man, a trusted subordinate, taking advantage of the desires of a barely-grown boy who was trapped on an old ship and had no age mates to turn to. There were few people in the world that Jee owed more to than General Iroh, and he felt rather guilty at how very little he cared about what the old man would think of him. Guilty, and definitely a little afraid. Jee had been right there at the Great Siege, and the General's present-day amiable facade didn't fool him. It was true that General Iroh seemed to have lost his appetite for violence, but if there was one person in the world he would gladly kill for, it was surely Zuko.

But sweet things only got more toothsome if they came with a certain amount of very real danger, and Jee wasn't a lowly lieutenant after two full decades in the military because he had good impulse control. Why start working on it now? He was too old and too poor and too deep in disgrace to have any hope of improving his lot. He had nowhere to go and no one waiting for him, and they were all going to die on this floating wreck anyway because Zuko was never, ever going to give up on that stupid Avatar.

He wasn't going to feel bad for grabbing enjoyment when it walked up to him and  _asked_  for it. Zuko was right here and willing. Even better, he seemed to have good instincts for this. He was starting to knead the back of Jee's neck with strong fingers and push his hips up into every roll of Jee's, barely missing a beat.

Look at that. The brat could be taught.

But there was something that didn't quite fit down there; their cocks weren't lining up right, no matter what angle Jee tried, as if there wasn't enough room for things to shift around. Then he bothered to remember that beautiful picture Zuko had made while lounging about the skiff a few months ago.

He ran a hand down Zuko's waist until he found the edge of his loincloth, a flat rope of fabric just thick enough to stand out under the silk of the breeches.

"Sir, why do you tie your loincloth so low over your hipbones?"

Zuko blinked. "That's normal."

"For children, yes. But over the navel is more comfortable once you start getting erections in your clothes. You need the extra space."

"...Oh."

The Fire Lord had definitely been remiss in some areas of his son's education. "I'll show you, sir," Jee murmured.

He followed the line of the rope with his fingers until they slid over the bump where it had been tied. There was just enough room between the both of them now for Jee to let his thumb slide up and then under the edge of the breeches' waistband. His nail scraped along a sharp hipbone, but then the skin against his knuckles turned smooth and slick enough for him to hook his thumb under the knot of the loincloth. The cotton rope was tight and damp with sweat; there would be no untying it without an unpleasant amount of fumbling.

No matter. Damaging these lovely silk breeches was out of the question, but the prince definitely had some underclothes to spare . Jee closed his eyes for a moment, concentrated on the press of the worn fabric against the pad of his thumb, and then snapped the knot clean through with one quick burst of flame.

Zuko jerked up. "Hey! What are you -  _oh_."

Jee grinned as he felt the brat's cock leap up, free of its confines. "There. Isn't that better?"

"Yes,  _fine_ ," Zuko growled, and mercifully leaned in for another kiss just when Jee was opening his mouth to say something very unwise about lack of gratitude.

Oh, well. He  _had_  known who he was dealing with before he started this, and shrugging off the brat's rudeness was suddenly a lot easier now that shutting him up was a simple matter of grinding up against him and feeding him warm swirls of chi from his own mouth. It probably wouldn't be long before Zuko learned to coordinate himself enough to use his brain while kissing, but until then, Jee was very much going to enjoy the silence.

He took his time feeling up the muscles he'd only been able to admire from afar for the past few months. His hands roamed everywhere they could reach, caressing and squeezing, along beautifully curved biceps and round shoulders and down a flat, hard chest. The training tunic definitely wasn't as new as the silk breeches. It was soft and worn from use, and it smelled of nothing except warm boy. There really wasn't any give in it at all - it stayed stretched tight as a drum over Zuko's skin when Jee dragged his fingers down. When he found a nipple and scratched it through the thinning cotton, Zuko's breath stuttered in the middle of a hard exhale, and his heartbeat leapt against Jee's hand.

Jee hid a smile against Zuko's brow and stilled the movement of his hips, taking a few moments to boost Zuko up against the door and just  _feel_. He drew his hand away from the nipple and flattened it over Zuko's heart. The thrum of it was rapid, but strong and steady, much like the main engine of the Yuan running at battle speed. He wondered what it would be like to rest his head there, maybe even sleep. Perhaps Zuko would let him one day.

He didn't get more than a few seconds to ponder the possibility. One of the boot heels pressing against his ribs shifted and began to slam insistently into the small of his back.

The little bastard was  _kicking_  him.

"Move," Zuko whined. "I didn't give you permission to stop. I  _want_..." He grabbed at Jee's hair and mashed their mouths together. When Jee tried to pull away, the fingers in his hair twisted painfully.

_Oh, no you don't_. Simple bad manners were easily forgiven when tempered with kisses and a warm body to spread his fingers over, but Jee would rather step over the side of his ship than take  _orders_  between the sheets. Or up against the wall.

Never again. At least this time, he wasn't in a position where he had no options except to shut up and take it . He had nothing to fear from Zuko, not really, prince or no prince. Jee was only being nice to him because he chose to do so. They'd have to demote him to chief barnacle scraper to push him any lower down the ladder than he already was. If the brat did try to get rid of Jee, the crew would hit him with a full mutiny before he could say 'Avatar'. And if he tried to get nasty in some other way, Jee could out-smart or out-fight him. Zuko had no backup to call upon, save for the General, and he clearly thought that informing his uncle about any of this would mean the end of the world. He stood alone.

Jee gave Zuko's forehead a little shove, and their lips parted with a wet  _pop_.

" _Stop hurting me_ ," he growled. "You don't get to tell me what to do. Not here!"

Zuko stared at him as if he'd just heard the floor object to being walked upon. There was saliva smeared all over and around his mouth, like wet, invisible lip coloring.

"What?"

Jee gave his left buttock a hard squeeze to make sure the brat was listening. "Let me make one thing clear,  _sir_. If you try to order me around while we're doing this, I'll walk out of this room and never touch you again." Zuko's mouth fell open, and he looked like he was about to bleat some protest, but Jee cut him off. "You're my superior officer. You can order me to do anything that has to do with the running of this ship, but you can't make me come within three feet of you if I don't want to. If you kick me again... If you try to force me to do  _anything_ , I'll make you very sorry."

Zuko's good eye went wide.

"I wasn't  _making_  you... I wouldn't!"

He couldn't have sounded more horrified if Jee had accused him of kissing Zhao's greasy, lying mouth. If he was being insincere, he was putting on a marvelous bit of acting.

"All right," Jee conceded. "Just so we're clear, sir."

"I  _wouldn't_ ," Zuko repeated.

"Al l right, sir. I believe you." He actually did. This was going to come back and bite him some day, he just knew it. He should be sterner than this.

And he really shouldn't care that Zuko was looking like  _he_  was the one who'd been kicked. Damn it, he hated it when people stared at him like he'd hurt them, no matter that they deserved it. Agni knew he'd tried and tried to just _stop_  feeling like it was his responsibility to fix things whenever anyone who was even nominally a member of a group under his care was unhappy. Three-quarters of the time, all it earned him was involvement in messes not of his own making and blame for things that weren't his responsibility at all.

But if he'd ever managed to stop wanting people to like and trust him, he probably wouldn't be stuck on this ship now.

The kid looked  _hurt_ , damn him.

"Sir, I ...listen. This kind of thing is tricky when it happens between people of different ranks. But not impossible. You just have to be a little more careful than usual." He rubbed soothing circles on the side of Zuko's head with his thumb and spoke in the burned ear, taking care not to actually touch it. "If you treat me right, I'll do the same for you. It's that simple. You respect me, I respect you."

Zuko angled his face so that the scarred half was away from Jee. He nodded.

"Fine."

"That means you  _don't_  kick me," Jee said. "Or pull my hair, or do anything else that you know will hurt. And don't firebend at me. If you're unhappy, sir, just tell me."

"You already said that before, I'm not deaf," Zuko huffed.

Sometime later tonight, when he was alone again, Jee knew he'd best drag out his long-unused meditation candles and reflect on the eighty-eight ways in which expecting respect from the brat prince was absolute folly. In all likelihood, Zuko was agreeing only because he wanted Jee to get on with things.

But this was the best he was going to get, for now. Perhaps it would make Zuko think a bit. The kid actually did look abashed at having been scolded. It didn't show except by the way his fingers were twitching against Jee's shoulders, but he seemed to have lapsed back into the nervous uncertainty he'd displayed before Jee had just shoved him up against the door.

He'd been a lot more fun while confident. Jee leaned in and whispered in his ear.

"Sir, you never told me if you wrote that list of everything you want to try." He curved his back so that he was pressing against Zuko from hip to shoulders, leaving just enough space for his fingers to scratch at a nipple again.

Zuko let his head drop back against the door with a shuddering sigh.

"Of course I didn't," he breathed. "Anyone can find a piece of paper."

Another slow thrust, and this time Zuko met it, arching up and pushing his cock along Jee's.

Mmmm. "I'm sorry to hear that, sir. I was looking forward to it."

Zuko shrugged.

"I'm not writing anything down. If you're that bored at night, just buy a scroll of spring tales in town or something," he mumbled. One of his hands insinuated itself between them, sliding across Jee's collarbone. Zuko curled his fingers and started drawing them down, but after a moment, he began frowning and retracing his path.

Jee very nearly laughed. "One spring tale scroll would cost me eight months of wages, sir." He knew, he'd calculated it. "And my shirt is thicker than your tunic. Don't bother, you won't feel much of anything through that."

Thwarted in his search for a nipple, Zuko huffed and glowered deeper, and Jee didn't doubt that he'd cross his arms and pout again if there had still been enough space between them for that.

He tried to forestall any sulking with a long, slow kiss. It seemed to help.

"Read a lot of spring tale scrolls in your life, sir?"

He hadn't thought that Zuko could turn any redder than he already was, but the brat clearly had undiscovered depths of crimson beneath his skin. The air around them was starting to heat up noticeably.

"I didn't  _look_  for... They were in the palace library!"

Jee had never seen the inside of a real library, but he thought he had a fairly good idea what it was like. If he'd gotten a silver  _sen_  for every time Zhao boasted about that spirit library he'd discovered in the arsehole of some Earth Kingdom desert, he'd be rich enough to give every man on the Yuan a spring tale scroll of their very own.

He rather wished he could do just that. If they wanked more, maybe they'd fight less.

"And the scrolls in the palace library flew at your head and forced you to look at them, sir?"

"Lu Ten showed them to me!" Zuko croaked.

Jee pressed his lips together in a hard line. It was that, or snicker out loud. "Tell me about your favorite."

"No!" Zuko's voice had leapt from raspy to downright shrill, but from the look of him, he was thinking extremely hard about whatever scroll it was that he didn't want Jee to know about. With so much blood going to his face, it was a wonder he was managing to stay hard.

But maybe it was best to drop this topic. If Zuko actually did start talking about the undoubtedly vast collection of spring tale scrolls in the palace in Caldera, Jee wasn't sure if he'd be delighted or jealous enough to wring the prince's neck. He'd only ever owned three spring tale scrolls himself, all gifts, and they were all lost now. He was never going to forgive Zhao for confiscating all his belongings before kicking him off his ship. His only hope was that they'd been divided among the crew and Zhao hadn't rummaged through them himself. The thought of his beloved scrolls in the filthy paws of that walking, talking cow-pig made Jee want to take a long shower and scrub until he'd peeled off all of his skin.

"All right, sir. Tell me about the scrolls later, then."

Now Zuko did pout.

"I don't want to," he growled. "And you can't make me."

Jee nodded, trying to look harmless and reassuring. "Of course. You have my full permission to firebend at me if I try to force you to do or say anything."

Zuko snorted. "I don't need your permission. And I wouldn't need to bend. One word from me, and  _Mai_  will come over here and kill you."

He craned his head to the side so he could look around Jee's shoulder. A moment later, an ear-splitting roar thundered from the rhino pen. The walls shook as if the ship had just taken a point blank hit from a trebuchet.

The beast wasn't breathing right in his face this time, but Jee still squeezed his eyes shut in pure reflex. Right when he'd managed to forget about the monsters behind his back... He pinched Zuko's left buttock at the tender spot where his leg began, and Zuko yipped.

"Sir. It's very rude to communicate with rhinos while making out with someone. We don't do that."

"There's no such rule," Zuko sneered. "Besides, pikeman Shi..."

Oh, _spirits_. "We  _also_  don't talk about the bedroom habits of people we know while  _we_  are trying to make out." He soldiered on before Zuko could find something else to complain about. "Now, you've gotten good at kissing. Leave that alone for a bit and try to concentrate on moving in time with my hips instead."

"I want to kiss."

Patience, patience. "You need to concentrate on moving now, until you can do it without thinking, and then you can try kissing at the same time. It's not hard. You'll get the hang of it very soon, you just need to practice for a little while." Oh, how he wished this was some kind of officially sanctioned training session in which he was allowed to just order Zuko to do things. Having to wheedle and beg for every scrap of cooperation was getting old fast.

" _Fine_ ," Zuko sighed, as if he was doing Jee some great favor.

Good enough. Jee shifted his hands up a few inches so that he had a better grip on Zuko's hips, then pushed forward.

"Move, push back at me. Yes, like that." On the next thrust, he pressed down on the hipbones under his thumbs, down and then up. "Now follow the pressure and  _roll_ ," he purred.

Not a minute later, Zuko seemed to have forgotten that he'd ever wanted to do anything except follow every lazy upthrust of Jee's hips. Jee had known it would come easy to him. Sets of firebending kata were all about tempo, aggressive but precise movements, and exactly enough restraint to control and release waves of chi that were looking for a way out of the body. Really, it was like the exercises were designed to teach young people how to fuck just right. Sadly, no instructors ever mentioned  _that_  while lecturing on how fire was the superior element.

Even Zuko's breathing had adjusted to the rhythm; it was coming hard, but slow and deep and deliberate. A glimpse of pink tongue was just visible between his parted lips. His hands had gone entirely still, fingertips resting against Jee's neck like ten hot marbles.

One of his booted feet started to slide down Jee's backside. He didn't seem to notice, and Jee quickly gave him another pinch.

"Sir. Legs, sir! Don't let go!"

Zuko snapped out of his daze like he'd been pushed off his bed in the middle of a dream. He yelped and tightened his grip again - wedging the heel of the rogue foot squarely between Jee's thighs.

It would have been a singularly painful experience if any naked skin had been involved. With two layers of fabric to cushion Jee's balls from the impact of the rough leather, though, it felt  _remarkably_  like being fucked between the legs.

He had no idea what kind of sound came out of his mouth, but it made Zuko's good eye pop wide open. The brat jerked his foot back up.

"No, that was good!," Jee gasped. "Put that foot back, put it back  _now_."

Zuko blinked.

"Uh?"

Oh, please. Jee took another steadying breath, then reached down with one hand and knuckled  _hard_  at the back of Zuko' privates.

It was difficult to tell with the breeches and loincloth still in the way, but he'd obviously hit the right spot; Zuko jumped in his arms with a very undignified squeak. His mouth fell open. There were sparks in it, bouncing off his sharp teeth like tiny fireworks.

"That's what you just did. Sir. Now put that foot  _back_."

Another moment, and then the boot heel returned, almost hesitant.

"Harder," Jee ground out. He tried to set a good example by canting his hips up against Zuko's in a slow, deep grind. "Like this. Follow my movements, like before. You need...  _Yes._  Friction. You need friction. Not just pressure."

He stopped trying to talk for a moment and just moved, letting the rhythmic push of Zuko's heel between his legs set the tempo. It was so good when they  _got_  it, when they understood something and he could stop leading and just luxuriate in what he'd created.

The feeling was intoxicating enough that his eyes fell closed all on their own. When he realized and blinked them open again, Zuko was watching him, his face absolutely rapt with concentration. The tip of his tongue was poking out at the corner of his mouth now.

Jee almost smiled. Unless he was very much mistaken, the brat prince had just discovered that making other people feel good could be a stimulating activity in and of itself. Perhaps he should start writing these milestones down. He could keep a log book, just like the one he wrote about the running of the Yuan. Exactly how mad would Zuko be if he found out about something like that?

"Like that. Good," he sighed. He drew his own hand back up from under Zuko and took hold of a buttock again, spacing his fingers carefully so that he could knead and caress all of it. It was an exceptionally fine buttock, rounded and muscular, hard and soft in just the right places. He wanted to kiss it.

Some other time. One swipe of his tongue was enough to make Zuko's lips part wide for his, and Jee exhaled a fluttering tongue of of flame. Zuko made a tiny, hungry noise and sucked the fire in like it was a sip of cool water. Jee hummed into his mouth and licked more chi forward, trying to lower its temperature enough so that it would soothe and stroke rather than inflame.

"Take it. All yours," he murmured. His own voice sounded rough and scratchy to his ears. He should have brought some actual water to drink down with them.

He tried to move with Zuko, thrust back and give him some momentum to work with. It wasn't hard; the brat was keeping a good, steady rhythm now, the kind born from years and years of daily bending training, and Jee could definitely follow  _that_. He slid his arms around Zuko's waist and held him close, splaying his hands so he could feel the prince's back ripple with every roll of his hips. He let his eyes drift closed again. Keeping them open seemed like a terrible bother, and muffling any of his own gasps and moans was just not necessary at all. They were all alone down here. It wouldn't be  _fair_ , besides, for Zuko, who was working so hard to make those sounds happen. Good boy.

And Jee didn't have to look to know that Zuko was still watching, and listening.

_Go on, look your fill. See what you can do._

Zuko's face was only a finger's width away, and with every panting breath he expelled, tingling hot chi spilled into Jee's mouth and over his lips and chin in a messy whirl. It wasn't really a kiss; keeping their mouths locked together would have taken effort, and that was needed elsewhere. Zuko seemed to be using every last shred of concentration he had on just keeping his movements steady, and while Jee had done this often enough not to have to think about coordinating different parts of his body, the relentless, pulsing pressure against his cock and the back of his balls was just too  _good_  to give it anything but his full and undivided attention.

It was  _working_. Maybe Zuko was doing this right by accident rather than through real skill, but somehow, he'd hit upon a way to make it work. He was moving along perfectly, helping, tightening his legs every time Jee pushed forward and angling himself just so that they rolled together as if they'd been at this for years instead of minutes.

"That's it," Jee said, with what he was quite sure was the last bit of air left in his body. He was starting to feel a little faint. "That's it, sir. That's it, that's it..."

Zuko might manage to take it wrong if Jee did say something like 'good boy', but he wanted to say it so badly, because the brat actually  _was_  being good for once. So good. He'd never been this good in all the time Jee had known him, and oh Lord Agni, Jee would do some very unimaginable things to convince Zuko to keep on being this helpful.

Judging from the way Zuko was straining against him and panting, this was going to be over very soon. That was fine by Jee. Zuko was sixteen, he'd learn how to pace himself better soon enough. For now, Jee could just let him come and then take care of himself at leisure after he put the brat down on one of those nice bales of hay. Zuko would probably even like to watch, the little voyeur.

Zuko's weight was nearly all on the door now, leaving Jee's hands free to roam anywhere and everywhere. He rubbed the chest muscles heaving under his fingers, scratched hard at a nipple right over the soaked tunic, and reached up to draw trails through the sheen of wetness that covered Zuko's bare neck. He slicked the dry skin again immediately with a long, slow lick.

Zuko didn't lose his rhythm -he was learning, even now- but he _whimpered_.

"More, Lieutenant," he breathed. Jee could feel him swallowing every flame, small pushes of his chest against Jee's that were out of sync with the movements of their hips. There were fingers at the back of his head again, kneading his scalp and tugging at his hair. Had Zuko ever even touched short hair before today? Perhaps not, judging from the way he kept petting and playing with Jee's.

"More," Zuko insisted, as if that was the only word he remembered. Jee leaned in and opened his mouth to promise him more, anything he wanted,  _anything_  if only he kept on being such a  _good_  boy.

A creak of metal split the air with all the force of a thunderclap, more than long and loud enough to drown out Zuko's shocked squawk. It almost sounded like someone was turning the hatch wheel on the other side of the door.

 

(Scene be continued in chapter 6, in a few days. I 'm sorry? :))


	6. In which a very special birthday is celebrated, part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is once again a direct continuation of the last scene of the previous chapter, so you may want to start reading from there. With this chapter, this scene is finally over and done. Fresh silliness next time. jin_fenghuang, thank you for the beta! Any errors remaining are my own.

  
It  _was_  the sound of the door hatch turning, Jee knew that right away, but his sluggish brain seemed incapable of processing the information. The door shuddered, hard. Jee could feel the impact travel through Zuko's body.

Zuko made a short, high sound and started gulping frantically. A few seconds later, he coughed up a tiny flame that had gone down his throat the wrong way.

There were people on the other side of their door. Voices, just a little muffled but perfectly audible.

"Pushing isn't going to work. It's locked. I'm sure I locked it after the evening watch."

A grunt. The door's hatch wheel clicked and groaned.

"No, you didn't. It was open, it locked when I turned it just now. Look, the hatch pin is up."

"Oh." A pause. "That's strange."

"Shi, I've told you to lock that thing. I've told you sixty times over."

"Sorry."

"We can't keep welding everything those beasts destroy, and we can't afford new parts . Do  _you_  want to tell Prince Zuko that this ship can't run anymore because you forgot to lock a door and the rhinos ate our engine?"

"Maybe he'd understand? He knows they're bored in there, poor girls, and he likes them. It's my  _other_  officers who don't care about our hard-working rhinos. At  _all_."

"Shi..."

"Apologies for my oversight, sir. It won't happen again, First Mate, sir."

"Oh, knock it off and get that hatch open."

"Sorry, Haisu. Here, this should do it."

Jee had had seconds to put Zuko down and block the hatch lock, or to just brace himself, or  _anything_. But somehow, his head had been too full of  _this cannot be_  for him to even move, and when the door hit Zuko's back again and threw him forward, Jee wasn't prepared in the least.

His knees very nearly buckled. With Zuko's full weight suddenly on him, instead of born by the door, Jee had to take a step backwards to keep his balance and avoid falling on his tailbone. He grabbed Zuko's buttocks with both hands again to keep from dropping him, twisted with the momentum of his step, and pushed forward as hard as his straining legs could manage.

It was enough - Zuko's back slammed against the door, and they were plastered together again from groin to chest, panting into each other's mouths. Jee tried to will away the shaking in his legs and opened his eyes. Zuko was staring straight at him. He seemed to have frozen up entirely. His good eye was gleaming far too brightly, but if he was in pain from being thrown into the metal plating, it certainly didn't seem to bother him. He was still rock hard against Jee's stomach.

The door was pushed forward again, but this time Jee had braced himself, and all it did was grind Zuko into him harder. He bit his lip and swallowed a groan. The room suddenly felt twice as hot, and he wasn't sure it was just his imagination.

"Something's blocking the door," Shi said.

Jee would have closed his eyes and counted to ten, except that would have meant looking away from Zuko's flushed face with those wide open eyes and open,  _sparking_  mouth and kiss-swollen lips, and that just wasn't going to happen. All they had to do was wait and keep quiet for one short little minute. Haisu and Shi wouldn't stand around in front of a creaky old hatch that refused to open. There were plenty of other secluded spots down here where they could go and enjoy themselves.

Or perhaps they were drunk enough to start doing it right there against the door. He imagined Zuko and Haisu pushed back to back with only a thin wall of steel between them, and the vision drove a shudder of lust down to the tips of his toes.

Zuko felt it; he still had that absolutely frozen expression of his face, but there was something desperate and pleading seeping into his eyes. Beads of sweat were running down his forehead. There was a sound building in his throat, a sort of long, unbroken whimper, so soft that Jee wouldn't have been able to hear it if they hadn't been more or less inside each other's clothes.

The sound didn't stop. It got louder and more desperate every second, and Jee dug his fingers into Zuko's buttocks, hard enough to bruise.

" _Quiet_ , sir," he hissed. "They'll leave in a minute. Wait. Just wait."

Zuko shook his head, quickly, jerkily.

"I can't," he breathed. It was barely audible, but probably because he had no air left to talk with, not because he was being quiet on purpose. "I can't, I can't, I  _can't..._ "

" _Wait_ ," Jee ground out. "And. Be.  _Quiet_."

He punctuated each word with a roll of his hips, and it didn't occur to him that that was probably no help at all until Zuko bared his sharp little teeth in a furious hiss.

There was an alarming edge of real, actual panic to it that made Jee pause and pay a little more attention to the brat. Something wasn't right. His breath was too hot.  _All_  of him was too hot, and still getting hotter. Sweat was steaming right off his skin. The heat burbling against Jee's stomach was far beyond anything mere arousal could possibly cause. It felt like he might as well be hugging the ship's boiler.

He was about to ask if Zuko felt all right, but he was cut short by another shove at the door.

"The damn rhinos got out of the pen again," Haisu's voice said. "Kick that door in, they'll tear the fence to shreds and I'll spend five days putting it back together. We need to get them back inside now."

What was  _wrong_  with that man?

"Walk into a room where four huge rhinos are running about so I can kick them a little? Are you mad? It'll take all night. Let's go around to the skiff. I like the skiff."

At least Shi seemed to be thinking like a normal horny sailor in search of what passed for privacy on this floating wreck. Even if it sounded like the two of them had been doing unmentionable things in Jee's skiff.

"Sozin on a pink ostrich horse! I'm a firebender and you're a pikeman. Grab a pike. We'll corral them and..."

"I don't want to," Shi groused.

They started bickering.

_Bickering_. Jee knew these people, they were like a pair of old ladies. Once they got a good bicker going, they could keep it up until their poor balls shriveled and fell off.

"Lieutenant.  _Lieutenant_ ," Zuko whispered, still with that strange, high note of urgency in his voice. He was tugging on Jee's shirt as if trying to get his attention. As if Jee could possibly be concentrating on anything but him right now.

"Sir, if you can't be quiet, I'll gag you!" He lifted his hand, palm forward, and shook it in front of Zuko's mouth.

Zuko didn't take the hint. "No, _now_ \- I feel weird, I need to let go _now_ \- _mmmph!_ "

Oh, he was going to pay for this one. Zuko looked just about ready to kill him. The air that poured out of his nose and over Jee's knuckles was hot enough to boil water.

His chin was straining down against Jee's thumb, but Jee held fast. If he let Zuko open his mouth, he was very certain he'd lose a few fingers at the very least.

"Quiet! Do you want rumors all over this ship about what you get up to down here? Do you want your uncle to hear that you didn't want to go to the best pleasure house in town because you prefer to rut against a door with an old sailor?"

Agni, it was hard to recall who Zuko's uncle even  _was_  right now. Jee had no idea how he was still managing to form coherent sentences. He was thirsty and his cock was throbbing so hard it was almost enough to make him forget about the pain in his back, and he wanted to  _finish_  this.

And his efforts at reasoning were completely wasted, too; Zuko didn't look like he'd understood a single word. The white of his good eye was visible all around the iris, and the burned eye was open almost twice as wide as normal. He was vibrating, tense and singing like the strings of Jee's pipa. His fingers were scrabbling wildly at Jee's arm. The metal arm brace kept him from gaining any purchase on the limb, though, and if he was trying to wrench away the fingers blocking his mouth, he was doing it with a very odd lack of coordination. And he was  _swallowing_ , over and over, adam's apple bobbing up and down furiously.

Every line on his face said that if Jee weren't keeping him silent, he'd be screaming.

A strange smell was starting to rise on the air. Something burning. Cotton, Jee realized, almost the same instant that he felt the crackle of smoldering cloth against his stomach and noticed that there was  _steam_  coming out of Zuko's nostrils.

Jee stared, mind somewhere between dumb lust and real, honest terror as it dawned on him that he'd lost control of the situation. He hadn't been paying attention. He hadn't expected things to get quite this exciting, or he'd let himself get too distracted, or maybe he could blame it on those two morons still yammering on outside their door, but he  _hadn't been paying attention_ , and now the brat was trying to hold in a fireball that felt large enough to fill this entire room, hay and rhinos and all.

Zuko had been drinking, and Jee had made him perform unfamiliar breathing exercises without letting him take breaks so his chi could settle to normal levels again. Damn it all, he'd been  _feeding_  the kid large mouthfuls of chi, without making him give some back. Any experienced bender would know how to get rid of the excess fire without setting things alight. Zuko wouldn't. Too much chi, too much distraction, alcohol, tight clothes - and then Jee had cut off his air flow, too.

The brat would either come or spew enough flame to blast Jee's head off. Possibly both. What a way to go.

But  _nothing was happening_ , and it was all the fault of those babbling idiots out there. Jee wanted to bang a fist against the door in outrage, but the muscles in his arms were already cramping, and he didn't dare jostle Zuko right now. Secrecy be damned, he had to make them go away.

The only thing he could think of was to roar, so he roared.

"LEAVE!"

The bickering on the other side of the door stopped as if Jee had flipped a switch. For a few seconds, the silence was so absolute that he could actually hear Zuko's heart racing. Or maybe that was the sound of a massive rush of pure chi heat roiling up from the brat's stomach.

Zuko snapped his hips up once and  _keened_  against Jee's fingers - a long, piercing trill, like the cry of a hawk-dragon. It lasted just long enough for Jee to realize that he was going to wank off to the memory of that sound for the rest of his life.

Then heat crashed into the palm of his hand with the force of a boiler steam blast, and he had to use every last shred of concentration he had left to keep it from slipping between his fingers and turning into flame. He'd never been particularly adept at channeling pure temperature, but it wasn't like he had a choice right now; either he'd open up to the heat and divert it through his body, into the floor, or Zuko would vaporize his hand and then his face.

There was red everywhere in his vision. His fingers were backlit by whatever was going on in Zuko's mouth; he could see his finger bones, dark gray bands in a field of glowing muscles and blood vessels. But most of the reddish light was coming from below, where he'd poured heat into the floor plating, and he knew without looking down that the metal under his feet looked like something straight out of a hellish smithy right now. He desperately hoped that the spot of superheated floor wasn't large enough to set fire to any of the bundles of hay piled up all around them. Putting the flames out wouldn't take a second, but the smoke would go out the vents and bring the whole ship running.

But no fire came. And then it was over, just like that, and Zuko went limp, eyes fluttering closed and fingers scrabbling weakly at the back of Jee's tunic. He started to cough.

The intense pressure around Jee's waist loosened, and he quickly hoisted Zuko a bit higher up against the door so he could hook his elbows under the brat's thighs and hold him up. Zuko dropped his head on Jee's shoulder and tried to tighten his arms again, but he couldn't catch much purchase with his shoulders lifted above Jee's.

Jee turned his head and pressed a kiss on Zuko's good ear. "It's all right. I've got you," he whispered.

When he followed it up with a bit of humming, Zuko finally relaxed, melting against Jee with a deep sigh. He burrowed his face into what seemed to become his favorite spot at the base of Jee's neck. Jee tried to match the rhythm of his own heavy breaths to Zuko's so their chests wouldn't get in each other's way. It worked, after a few long and fumbling seconds.

"Better," he murmured. "That's better." A small huff of too-hot air curled over his shoulder, and he wondered if Zuko was laughing or crying. Jee was feeling a little hysterical himself. On the one hand, he'd quite probably escaped death just now. On the other hand...

He'd spent the better part of two decades exploring a new port every week or two, and most of his previous voyages hadn't been with frantic and obsessed commanders who never wanted to stay longer than the time it took to resupply and interrogate a few people. Jee had had plenty of occasions to make short-term friends, and he'd had the pleasure of introducing at least a dozen of them to the joys of rutting against walls in the dark. He'd been so sure that he knew what to expect here. He knew how this was supposed to work, and he knew what the brat prince was like. But he'd really had no idea.

Maybe he'd just forgotten what it was like to have his expectations exceeded. This was definitely going in a log book somewhere. Zuko could kill him for it later, if he wanted.

There was a hesitant knock at the door.

"Everything all right in there, sir?"

Jee leaned his forehead against the metal of the door - the cool metal, oh Lord Agni, it was  _cool_  - and took a few deep breaths.

"Yes. Leave," he repeated. He'd meant to snap, but it came out more like a parched wheeze.

Apparently Haisu had heard him well enough, though. There was a long pause, then a few murmurs followed by the sound of retreating footsteps.

Jee pushed them out of his mind. He could deal with them tomorrow, when he didn't have almost twenty  _kanme_  of shuddering, post-orgasmic royal person on his hands, and a raging erection that he'd been forced to ignore because he'd been busy trying to keep his face from being blown off. His heart still hadn't stopped hammering.

As soon as he was sure he'd definitely heard two sets of footsteps thunder back up the metal stairway, Jee pulled Zuko's dead weight away from the door with a deep groan and heaved him onto the nearest pile of hay. The brat simply flopped on his back and stayed there. He didn't set anything on fire at all, thank all the misbegotten spirits.

Jee leaned against the cool wall of the hull. He rolled his shoulders and began stretching his arms and legs, slowly and very, very gingerly. His back was probably a lost cause, but he could at least try to soothe his abused muscles. When he reached behind his head to knead at a particularly sore spot on his neck, his hand came away slick with sweat. Zuko had baked every drop of it away from the front of his body.

He wanted to sit down, on a bale of hay or just on the floor, but the view up here was too good to pass up on.

Zuko really had burned straight through his tunic. The re was nothing left of it at the bottom, and the hole reached almost to his midriff. The blackened edges framed a patch of skin that actually glowed red. It was about the size of a hand, about the size of his scar, and looked supremely uncomfortable. He looked like he really should be sitting up and blowing flame just to relieve the pressure.

But Zuko didn't move from the position Jee had dropped him in, except to bring one shaking hand to his throat and tear at the remaining frog latches at the top of his tunic. One, two, three vicious tugs, and the unburned upper half of the tunic ripped straight down the middle. A few of the pearl latches made dull popping noises as they hit the hull and then the metal floor. As soon as the fabric parted over his chest, Zuko began coughing and gulping in deep, deliberate breaths of air. Every spasm of his throat made Jee wince in sympathy.

Maybe things wouldn't have gotten out of hand if Zuko had just listened better, but Jee really should have seen this coming. It was just... He hadn't even planned on teaching the chi breathing. And then Zuko had taken to it like a turtleduck to water and lapped up everything Jee gave him as if he'd been  _starved_  before, and by the time Jee should have been remembering all the things he'd ever learned about combining bending and sex and alcohol and adolescents, he hadn't been thinking much of anything anymore.

He should be beating himself up now, really. He always repeated past mistakes if he didn't take some time to bang his head against a wall until he was sorry.

Later. He'd do it later, when Zuko wasn't lying there, panting and open-mouthed, eyes closed and thighs spread wide open. One leg of his breeches had gotten dragged out of its boot and was bunched up above his knee, exposing a stretch of shapely white calf. He was still coughing a little, and every shudder of his body sent a ripple of reflected lamp light ghosting along the sweat-soaked fabric that clung to his legs like a second skin. The red silk looked drenched from the waist all the way down to the gold-embroidered hem, but that stain on the front was still very definitely a different sort of wetness.

There was no way in hell Jee could possibly feel sorry for anything while  _this_  was in the room with him.

"That was amazing."

Zuko's raspy voice was so hoarse it was barely even audible. There probably wasn't a speck of moisture left in his throat or mouth.

_That's right, it was. You almost killed me and I still didn't get off_ , Jee wanted to say, but he just couldn't work up the necessary amount of anger. He was too busy looking.

The spirits had plucked the brat prince right off Jee's ship, dipped him in a vat of sex, and put  _this_  back. Jee wondered how much truth there was to all those stories about spirit gifts bringing only bad luck, and whether he could be bothered to give a damn .

Zuko started pushing himself up on his elbows, and the two halves of his ripped black tunic fell open. The bright flush coloring his neck went nearly all the way down to his nipples.

No, Jee really couldn't be bothered.

Zuko opened his eyes and seemed to take a good look at Jee. He blinked.

"Er," he said. A few more moments of staring, and he raised a hand and made a vague sort of grabbing motion in the general direction of Jee's lower body. "Do you want me to... Um..."

Yes, oh  _yes_  he wanted, but he really wasn't in the mood to let Zuko take his sweet time figuring out how to give a hand job to someone other than himself. Tonight, class was over.

Zuko started raising himself up again, and Jee quickly made a stop-right-there gesture.

"No! Just... Stay where you are. Like that. Don't move."

A flash of something confused and almost disappointed crossed Zuko's flushed face, but Jee didn't give himself time to really look. He took two steps forward, hit his knees on the still-hot metal floor, and buried his face in the brat's crotch.

Zuko  _yelped_ , very loudly, and Jee had just enough presence of mind left to catch the knees closing in on both sides of his ears. He wrenched them far apart again before they could knock his brain right out of his head. It made the silk that covered most of his face stretch too tight for a second, and he growled and pushed forward against it until his nose was once again buried in wet softness.

There was a tug at his hair, but only one, and the small hurt barely registered over the overwhelming scent of boy, sweat, and semen that filled his nose and mouth. It went straight to his head like a shot of the near-lethal paint stripper that Cook only brought out when some injured crewman needed to be sedated. Jee grabbed down and gave his own groin a hard and immensely satisfying squeeze. He could have cried in relief.

The moan that escaped him would have been embarrassingly loud, but most it was muffled in the silk. Zuko's hips  _shuddered_  against him. Fingers raked over his scalp again, fumbling, trying to get a grip on his short, sweaty hair.

"Don't pull, that hurts," he managed to croak out. "...Do you want me to stop?" He deserved a  _medal_ , he did.

"No!" Zuko's voice was very far out of its usual octave. "Go ahead. At... at your discretion, Lieutenant," he squeaked, as if he was handing out permission to handle some sort of  _job_ , and Jee barked a laugh into his commander's crotch.

He reached up blindly, found the waistband of Zuko's breeches, and plunged three fingers in until they hit the bunched-up cord of the loincloth. Burning through the knot had only loosened the cloth. It was still  _there_ , and very much in the way. But it was only the work of a second or two to tug it aside entirely, and then there was only a thin layer of fine, wet silk betwee n his lips and Zuko's soft cock. He mouthed at the warm shape of it, humming, while he tugged at himself through his pants. He wanted to gulp in the taste and scent of this until he either passed out from lack of air or the prince lost patience and set his head on fire.

But Zuko was making beautiful and happy noises, and when Jee fit his mouth across his cock sideways and gave it a hard suck, Zuko's body jackknifed up with such force that he nearly threw Jee off again.

Jee released him for a moment so they could both take a deep breath. The air seemed to bypass his lungs entirely, roiling through the chi in his stomach and pushing all of it straight to his balls.

"I... Too soon, I can't... Give me a minute," Zuko whispered. There was a sob threatening to break through on every word.

Jee gave the soft, cloth-covered flesh in front of him a loving pat. "That's all right. You don't need to do anything at all, just let me," he murmured, and got back to work. Soon. In seconds. He just needed  _seconds_...

Zuko's fingers brushed across Jee's scalp again, but this time he didn't try to grab any hair. He just cupped the back of Jee's head with one hand, carefully, fingers settling down next to each other one by one, as if he were really trying not to pull anything.

It felt so awkward and  _gentle_  that it made Jee hitch in an astonished breath, and then he was coming, almost before he'd realized that he'd been squeezing himself hard enough to hurt.

He groaned and buried his face deep in the warmth between Zuko's legs. A small spasm went through the fingers at the back of his skull, and he pressed even closer, letting the prince feel every shudder and harsh breath. He imagined he could feel his own trembling reverberate through Zuko's legs.

_There. All yours. You did this._

It was over much too soon, like always.

He drew back a little and leaned his head against Zuko's inner thigh. It took a while for the roaring in his ears and the rough sound of his breath to subside, and then he was suddenly so very tired. He could sleep like this, right here. Just opening his eyes sounded like too much work to even contemplate. A few decades in the military had taught Jee to sleep while sitting up, and he was actually quite comfortable, on a warm floor with his head pillowed on a warm, strong leg, and with nothing much to think about except for the fading throbbing in his groin. If he let himself slip now, he'd be dead to the world even before the dampness in his own underclothes became too uncomfortable.

The muscles under his cheek began to twitch, and his pillow shifted a little.

"Lieutenant?"

Jee frowned, angling his face down a bit more so that the vague glow of the lamps that still reached through his eyelids was blocked by Zuko's leg.

_Leave me alone, I let you catch your breath after you nearly blew my head off._

A nother nudge from the leg. "Lieutenant," Zuko repeated. He sounded oddly hushed and curious, a bit like earlier in the evening, when he'd said that Jee was the only one who'd ever been honest enough to say that his scar made him ugly.

_Except for Zhao._  That thought made Jee remember that he still owed Zuko, and he opened his eyes.

Zuko was sitting up straight now. His mouth was open a little, and his good eye was a tad too wide. He didn't look angry, only gobsmacked and trying not to be. Not that that meant Jee should let down his guard; the prince never seemed to have many emotions that weren't at least a prelude to rage.

"Sir..." Jee really did want to give some sort of explanation, or excuse, but his skull was full of warm cotton and he had no idea what was about to come out of his mouth. "I want to suck you. Next time. You smell good."

Oh, wonderful. Jee squeezed his eyes shut again for a moment and silently willed Zuko to take the compliment in the spirit it was intended.

When he took a peek at the brat's face, though, he knew at once that he'd been crazy to worry. Zuko's mouth opened and closed helplessly. His eyes had taken on a glazed look.

Maybe his head was full of warm cotton too. It was a heady feeling, being desired, especially on the first real taste of it.

"I want more," he said.

An addictive feeling, too. Jee pressed an open-mouthed kiss on Zuko's left thigh. It was the only part of him he could reach without really moving, and every last inch of his limbs felt like lead.

"Yes, sir. Next time," he murmured against the damp silk.

Something about that niggled at the back of his mind. Ah, yes. Less than an hour ago, he'd decided to take this slow. He was doing a good job of sabotaging himself, promising blowjobs in the very near future. Maybe he could suck slowly.

He let his fingers slide up Zuko's bare knee and fingered the hem of the breeches. Up close, the embroidery he'd noticed before turned out to be a fine pattern of ginko leaves. It was a strangely delicate and peaceful bit of beauty to be adorning the body of someone who was the opposite of peaceful in every way. Perhaps the General hoped that something would rub off on his nephew.

"These are nice. It's silk, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I've never worn silk," he mused. He'd held it a few times, when carrying some superior or other's belongings. Once, halfway through the siege of Ba Sing Se, they'd apprehended two smugglers trying to sneak bolts of Gaoling silk past the Fire Nation lines. Jee had helped unload the contents of the women's cart and brought it to the General. The old man had exclaimed over the marvelous patterns and brilliant colors, and Jee had heard him order his scribe to send the bolts to his sister-in-law in Caldera. Zuko's mother, presumably. Maybe she'd clothed her son in the silks Jee had touched.

Zuko snorted. "You're not allowed. Silk is only for the royal family, and for nobles above the third rang."

He sounded like he was quoting from some snotty scroll of laws and rules. It was annoying, and Jee pinched his leg. "I know that."

"Off," Zuko murmured, slapping at Jee's hand.

Then he made a hiccoughing sound. It almost sounded like a giggle.

"Uncle said to be careful with these. Because silk doesn't stretch well. He said not to get them dirty."

Jee smiled. "Well. You'll think of something, sir."

He closed his eyes again and curled a hand over Zuko's other knee to help push himself to his feet. It felt like hours before he actually managed to rise, though. The pain in his legs and back had receded to a vague throbbing that didn't feel significant at all.

Still, he didn't particularly want to be standing up right now. He sat down on the bale of hay, settling his hip against Zuko's leg. Zuko just sighed and let himself drop back down. He sent up a small cloud of d ust and bits of dried grass.

Jee twisted his upper body around so he could take a good look at Zuko. He'd been meaning to ask if his chi had settled down properly, but...

There were four very distinct, fingerprint-sized red splotches arching up along the side of Zuko's mouth.

"Sir, your mouth is bruised," he said, reaching out without even thinking about it.  _He_  had made those.

Zuko blinked, put his fingers next to Jee's, and gave the marks a hard poke. It didn't seem to hurt him. His whole cheek would be purple by tomorrow, though. What if the splotches still looked like fingerprints then? What would the General think?

Jee started to rub the discoloration, as if that might make it fade, but Zuko batted his hand away. "Stop that. I'm fine. Go after those... those morons and make sure they don't tell the whole ship that we're down here." He shivered. "Or my uncle."

"What?"

Zuko sighed. " _Them_. Pikeman Shi and the first mate."

Jee stared. "You want me to get up and go after them. Now." He could barely feel his legs, and even the thought of getting up made his back cramp like murder.

Zuko coughed and made a face when his mouth expelled a small cloud of soot.

"No, tomorrow. Of course now! Shut them up before they tell my uncle!"

_You are sadistic and sick_ , Jee almost said, but he took a deep breath instead. "That's not necessary, sir. They won't blab."

Zuko made a disbelieving noise, and Jee absently patted his bare shoulder.

"I promise, sir. They wouldn't dare."

Normally any halfway normal sailor would spread information about the captain doing things to people up against doors in the hold faster than a parrothawk could fly. Now that he thought about it, though, Jee realized that he probably didn't have to be too worried about that this time. Haisu and Shi wouldn't need more than a simple two-minute process of elimination to figure out exact ly who Jee had been entertaining. Or not even that - Haisu was an excellent bender, one of the best Jee had ever trained, and he'd probably recognized Zuko's fire.

They wouldn't dare gossip about their captain  _and_  the brat prince. Especially if there was any chance the General might catch wind of it. And if they did dare, Jee would throw them both overboard the next time he clapped eyes on them. He could run faster than either of them and they had nowhere to hide.

"Are you sure?" Zuko was frowning again. He was starting to look tired rather than dazed.

"Positive, sir."

"You should go make sure."

_You are the single most inconsiderate person I've ever met_ , Jee almost said. Even bloody Zhao would give a man a breather after all this. "It's fine, sir. Really."

"Lieutenant, that makes no sense", Zuko grumbled. He didn't press any further, though, so Jee felt safe enough ignoring the implied command.

But now that he was thinking about it, leaving started to sound like a better idea than he'd first assumed. The kid really did look utterly and completely spent, and an exhausted Prince Zuko was rarely good company. Sticking around now would probably be trying his luck. He'd had a beautiful day, and he if he stayed to talk, he'd probably start another fight and ruin it. He'd bundle Zuko into bed, go to his cabin, and spend an hour or so meditating and burning every second of this evening even more deeply into his memory than it already was.

Jee began to stretch his legs, making sure blood was going to the right places before he tried to stand up again.

"Sir, can you get up? I'll take you to your cabin."

"No," Zuko mumbled. "Go away. I'm sleeping here."

Jee stared down at him.

"I don't think that's a good idea, sir. Someone's going to come in sooner or later." And they'd get the eyeful of a lifetime. Zuko hadn't moved or tried to cover himself up.

"Not  _here_  here. I'll hide in the pen. With the rhinos."

"Why?"

"Because I want to, and this is my ship and I can sleep wherever I like. Even in the rhino pen. What's your problem?"

_There are huge monsters in the rhino pen_ , Jee wanted to say, but Zuko was hardly likely to consider that any sort of valid argument. He had absolutely no sense of danger.

"Nothing, sir. Just wondering why you'd find the rhino pen preferable to your bed. It smells in here."

Zuko shrugged. "I don't care. I'm used to it."

"Ah."

"Nobody ever comes here," Zuko went on. He still had his eyes closed. "When I'm in my cabin, there's always people knocking. And Uncle doesn't even knock half of the time, he just walks in."

Well, that sounded awkward. At least Jee had managed to instill in everyone on board that barging in on him was a direct path to a month on the latrines roster, and the General didn't feel entitled to act quite that familiar with him.

"The rhinos will warn me if anyone comes in," Zuko said. "And if there's something suspicious but I don't wake up, they'll attack it. And they're warm and soft."

Jee looked at the pen. The beasts were all lying down and ignoring them, even that vicious Mai creature. One seemed to be having some sort of rhino dream; its hind legs were spasming, claws raking through the air. It looked the very opposite of soft.

"Don't they ever kick you, sir? By accident?"

Zuko shook his head. "They never move their paws when I'm lying on them. They're really careful. And kind."

Of course, and Jee was the bastard son of the Earth King. "If you say so, sir. I can say with a great deal of certainty that I've never even considered sleeping with rhinos."

One corner of Zuko's mouth twitched. "Don't try it. They hate you. They'd rip you open."

Mai thumped her tail on the floor plating as if in emphasis. Jee glared at her.

"Oh. How kind of them ."

He turned away from the monsters, put his head down on his folded arms, and spent a few minutes just watching Zuko's breathing slow. The air above the brat's naked stomach was still shimmering with heat. Nothing alarming, but it still didn't look very comfortable.

Jee reached out, fingers spread wide, and gently aligned his hand with the edge of Zuko's breeches. It made a sizzling sound wherever his sweaty palm touched skin. Zuko mumbled something sleepy and irritable-sounding, but Jee ignored him and concentrated on drawing heat away along his arm. It was more work than redirecting the blast from earlier; this chi was less hot, but thick and languid as syrup, and not very inclined to move. He had to actively pull at it rather than just letting it flow.

When he finally got a good grip on it and  _tugged_ , Zuko's stomach arched up so that the soft skin pressed against Jee's fingers. He caressed it until the muscles underneath stopped twitching and Zuko settled down again with a shaky sigh.

"Better?" Jee whispered, when the glow under his fingers had dimmed to no more than a blush under the skin.

Zuko nodded. His frown was gone again, and he looked almost peaceful now.

"I'm going to teach you how not to amass that much flame inside when you're excited," Jee said. "It's dangerous. If I hadn't been a bender, you could have injured me." He began tracing the character for his family name over Zuko's navel. The white strokes faded back into pink and soft red almost at once.

Zuko opened his eyes, blinked, and turned his head so he could look at Jee.

"Did I?"

"Did you what? Sir."

"Injure you."

"No, sir. But you could have."

Now Zuko looked distinctly unhappy again, and embarrassed. "Why is this even something I need to  _learn_?" he rasped. "This can't be happening to everyone. I've never even heard of it."

"In my experience, it only happens to benders who are so powerful that they can build up extraordinary reserves of chi down here..." Jee drew a long line down the taut skin under his fingers, now barely hotter than normal for a firebender, and started on his first name. "...or to benders who've learned to do the same by practicing the breath of fire regularly."

Zuko seemed to think it over for a moment. "Ah. Because practicing the breath of fire helps build chi reserves."

"That's right. How long have you been able to do it?"

"Uncle taught me last winter, a few days before we got to the South Pole."

Jee frowned. Eight months of practice didn't sound like long enough to create enough space in the stomach for the kind of fireball that Jee had just redirected. But the brat was downright obsessive about his bending training. Very often, he was at it the whole day - it wasn't like he had much else to occupy his time with on the ship. And there could be another reason. "But you're also just good at holding your breath, right? Sir."

A glint of pride appeared in Zuko's eyes. "I can swim under the keel. And back."

Yes, Jee had noticed. The sole reason for which the men had all started trying to dive under the keel last year had been that Zuko was doing it and nobody wanted to lose to the brat prince. Unfortunately, most of the crew weren't young men naturally blessed with the lungs of a sea cow-hippo, and at least three people had gotten in trouble before Jee realized what was going on and put a stop to it.

"Yes, I know. Very impressive. And you can even drown pikeman Bao, too."

And there came the scowl. Jee had almost missed it. "He tried to drown me first!"

"No, sir, he was just..." Oh, never mind. "It doesn't matter. You have strong lungs, you're lucky. That means you already have a lot of air to fan what chi reserves you have. You can concentrate on controlling what breathing strength you have, instead of having to work at increasing it. It's the amount of breath control that you have which determines what you can do with your chi. Since you know the breath of fire, you've already learned a lot about being conscious of how your lungs work. It shouldn't be difficult for you to adjust your breathing so that you don't end up coughing up a fireball."

"Can  _you_  do the breath of fire?," Zuko asked. He sounded so sceptical it was downright offensive.

Jee bared his teeth a little. "Just because I don't spit fire at everything that annoys me doesn't mean that I'm not capable of it,  _sir_. Besides, how do you think I can kiss you and actually control how much chi I'm passing on?"

He turned his face up towards the ceiling, let a small amount of chi rise up into his closed mouth, and began to shape it with his tongue. Then he blew it out in the shape of a perfect, gently spinning circle of fire. As soon as it has risen a hand's length above his face, he followed it up with a smaller circle that spun a little faster and in the opposite direction. It rose up through the first circle without touching its edges.

Zuko's good eye widened in obvious admiration. He stared at the circles until they dissolved into the air.

"During our first winter at Ba Sing Se, the General taught the breath of fire to all his officers who were capable of it," Jee murmured. "It was so cold that most of us were nearly useless otherwise."

Zuko's frown had eased up a little. He sat up a bit higher. "Fine. How does this technique of yours work?"

"It's a simple matter of distributing the heat across your body, by taking deeper breaths and pushing chi away from your stomach, constantly. The hard part is not to let it get too close to the surface of your skin at any point. As you can see, it's possible to set clothes or sheets on fire like that. If the person with you isn't a firebender, or a firebender who's too distracted, you  _will_  burn them."

Of course Zuko interrupted the first chance he got. "But I was  _trying_... I can't release heat if I can't let it come to the surface!"

Jee nodded. "True, but there's an incredible amount of space in your body that can be used to store excess chi. You probably haven't discovered half of it yet." He ran a finger over Zuko's hip and along the inside of his thigh, pressing down on the relevant points. "Most of it is close to large blood vessels. Here, for instance. Here. And here. In your arms as well, along the same paths."

Zuko shivered a little when Jee brushed the silk covering the tender skin at the back of his knee, and Jee made sure to linger there a little. "If you really do need to release heat somehow, it's all right to do so by breathing flame. Just make sure you do it on time, when the fire isn't big yet, and aim well away from people or flammable things. Stay in control of your chi at all times."

"Hmm."

"But not breathing flame at all is better. It's... It can kill the mood, sir, if you get my meaning. Most people don't like putting any part of their anatomy near the face of someone who might spew flame any second." He had no words to explain the absolute, crushing mortification that came with being left wanting with your pants around your knees because the other person saw fire and got scared. Zuko would just have to experience that for himself one day. "Some sparks are a nice touch, though, if your partner is a firebender."

"Well, I'll be careful then," Zuko murmured. Now he was starting to sound like he'd scared himself a little.

That was good, but not enough. Jee frowned down at him.

"Just paying more attention isn't going to keep it from happening again, sir. You need to practice your breath control, or you  _will_  slip up at some point. If you ask me, at least half of the burning deaths that are reported as firebending training accidents were actually bedroom accidents."

In fact, if Zuko had been a few years older when he came on board, Jee would have suspected that his injury was the result of a tumble gone very wrong. The face was the usual location for such burns, and excitable young folk were regrettably prone to making that kind of mistake.

Then a horrible idea crawled out of his mind and straight down his windpipe. Zhao was infamous for losing control at the drop of a hat. He wouldn't have...

No. Definitely not. If Zhao had not only laid his filthy hands on the crown prince but damaged him that badly, the Fire Lord would have boiled him in his armor and hung the corpse from the gates of his palace.

Zuko's expression was maddeningly blank. Either he was hiding something, or he had no idea what Jee was talking about. It was impossible to tell.

"...What do you mean?"

"Well, sir, of course no one talks about such firebending accidents. But they happen often." Jee made sure he was paying very close attention to every bit of Zuko's face before he went on. "There are rumors that Zha... Captain Zhao injured a few people in that way."

That was a lie, but it sounded plausible enough, and he needed to see Zuko's reaction to this idea  _now_. He couldn't possibly walk around for even a day stewing on the notion that Zhao might have burned Zuko. He'd go crazy.

Zuko didn't even flinch. He scrunched up his nose and drew his lips back from his teeth in a grimace of pure, honest disgust.

"Ugh. He would."

Jee could have cried in relief. He'd known, really. He'd known it was all right. He'd shave off his sideburns if it turned out that tonight had  _not_  been Zuko's first experience with another person. And Zhao always lied.

But it was good to be sure.

He stared as Zuko reached out and spread his fingers over his stomach, an inch or so above Jee's own hand.

"How do I..." He yawned. "How do I do this, then?"

Jee lifted his hand away from the soft skin and pushed Zuko's to the side. "I'll demonstrate next time, when you're a bit more awake. It takes some concentration in the beginning."

He'd expected the brat to moan about being told that he couldn't do something  _right now_ , but the look that Zuko turned on him was worried, perhaps even a little afraid. His burned eye was pinching and squinting oddly. It made the snarled, shiny scar tissue twitch like something alive.

"What if I burn you?"

Ah.

"You won't burn me, sir," Jee said at once. "You'll get the hang of it quickly, and until then, I'll know to be alert for any signs that you're not in control of your fire anymore. It doesn't happen from one moment to the other. I'll notice."

Zuko frowned. There was an uncomfortably long pause.

"Were you noticing just now? It didn't look like you were, Lieutenant."

Damn him. "Not fast enough, but those two idiots were distracting me. I'll pay more attention from now on."

Zuko didn' t look reassured at all. "So what will you do if I end up brewing a fireball again?"

"Put my mouth on yours, take control of your chi, and make it calm down. Sir. And if it's too late for that, I'll redirect your fire so it goes somewhere safe."

A loud snort. Zuko made a chopping gesture in the air with both hands. "That's ridiculous! I can't just lie back and assume that I'm not going to hit you with anything because you'll see it coming and... and... take over my breathing! If it's  _my_  fire,  _I_  need to be the one who's controlling it. That's a basic rule of firebending. If I can't be sure I'll manage keep my fire in check, I shouldn't be doing this at all."

Whoa, there. That was definitely not the direction Jee wanted this little talk to go in. "Sir, there's nothing wrong with not having perfect control yet while you're learning, if there's another bender around who's capable of stepping in when necessary. And I managed to keep your fire in check just fine today. If I can do it once, I can do it again." Probably. "Sir, it's simple. You just have to trust that I'll take over when you need assistance."

"I  _have_  to trust you?" Zuko sneered. "Who's going to make me?"

Jee almost sighed, but he had to admit that this probably wasn't just Zuko being insultingly paranoid. Depending on another bender to keep your fire under control was like holding a very sharp knife and then trusting someone else to move your hand around in a safe and responsible manner. The idea was particularly difficult to accept for young, less experienced benders who had personal and painful experience with flames gone haywire. Zuko was very visibly one of those.

He thought back on some of the exercises that he used to run new army recruits through to help them gain confidence in their fellow soldiers. "Sir, there's a game where you let yourself drop backwards and the person standing behind you catches you. Have you ever played it?"

The thunderous glower he got in reply told him that he probably hadn't picked a good example.

"Yeah, I have. With my sister." Zuko tilted his head and tapped his finger against a slightly raised line that ran behind his left ear. It was even whiter than the rest of his skull. "Here's where she dropped me."

Hmm. Jee had learned years ago that the princess was a topic that was best avoided. The one time he'd asked the royals about her, while trying to make polite conversation, Zuko had blanched and the General had started making shut-up motions.

"That was unkind of her. All right, never mind. But sir, you have to realize that I wouldn't take any unnecessary risks with large amounts of fire being created so close to my head. I can handle whatever you throw at me." He patted Zuko's stomach. "Trust me. It's safe."

Zuko pushed the hand away.

"I don't want you to take control of my fire. It's weird."

He was scowling fiercely, but he sounded sullen, almost childish. Jee reached out and squeezed his bare knee.

"Actually, sir, it can be quite pleasant to let someone else take the reins of your fire." That would be a very advanced lesson, though. "But I won't do it unless it's an emergency. I promise."

Zuko glared at him for another few moments, but finally, he nodded.

Jee heaved a quiet sigh of relief. It was important to make sure that Zuko understood the risks of getting carried away while clutching at another person, but it wouldn't do to frighten him any more than necessary. The first time Jee had tried to impress upon a young firebender that bending in bed could be dangerous, he'd managed to be completely terrifying instead of reassuring. That particular conversation was still one of those monumental past failures that sometimes crept up on Jee at random moments and made him cringe in remembered embarrassment. At least Haisu had turned out to be a very forgiving person, and one who could be persuaded to keep a secret.

Zuko frowned again.

"Wait," he said, turning so he could look Jee straight in the eyes. "No. I want you to show me now, not later. I'm awake."

Jee could see him swallow another yawn right after he said it.

Well, he did want another kiss. Just one more. And Zuko was insisting he stay. It would be rude to just ignore his crown prince, really.

"All right. Let's try the basics, just for a few minutes. Then I need to go to my bunk. I'm tired." He wasn't, but this was more likely to work than insisting that it was really Zuko's bedtime now.

He pushed himself up on his arms and leaned over. "I'm going to kiss you for a bit, and you'll try to breathe with me the whole time. Not at me. With me. Exhale when I inhale. You'll have to concentrate on me and remain conscious of your own breathing at the same time. That's a first step towards keeping your breath control even while someone else is being very dist racting and disturbing your rhythm with his own chi."

Zuko nodded and took a few deep, bracing breaths. His lone eyebrow curled down in furious concentration.

Jee smiled. He couldn't help it.

"If you lose my rhythm, tap my arm twice and I'll guide you back into it."

"Okay." Zuko opened his mouth, began to lick his lips, and then just  _stopped_. In the blink of an eye, his expression shifted from sleepy and aroused to wide awake and frowning like his life depended on it.

"You'll teach me the trick with the circle later. I can use that kind of breath control by the time I find the Avatar."

Jee just stared for a moment. He was doing it again. How was it even possible to switch a conversation about sex to something completely unrelated? Blowing flame circles. Fist-fighting. Avatars.

Zuko's fingers were thrumming a restless rhythm on the hay. He was probably thinking about where the Avatar might be hiding,  _right now_ , during every second in which Jee wasn't holding his attention by talking to him or touching him.

Jee just sighed and petted the base of Zuko's ponytail. He should probably feel honored, really. He was  _not_  the Avatar, and yet Zuko had deigned to concentrate on him alone for almost half an evening. There had to be something he was doing right.

"Yes, sir, I will teach you the trick with the circle," he promised. Then he grabbed at Zuko's crotch to cut off whatever other thoughts were still bouncing around in the brat's skull. " _Later_."

 

* * *

  
 __  
 **Unsigned note hidden in a pile of freshly washed clothes left in front of Lieutenant Jee's cabin**    


_Sir,_

_We're sorry for yesterday. Congratulations? Haisu says to tell you to be nice and remember not to explain sex with that story about the time your aunt accidentally blew up your uncle's head on their wedding anniversary. I swear I don't know what he's talking about. Haisu also says not to put weird bruises on Prince Zuko's face again because this time the General seemed to believe it when Prince Zuko said he'd knocked himself in the face with his armor again, but he isn't a very good liar most of the time and he was lucky the General was a bit distracted with his pai sho. By the way, Niu and I were on laundry duty this morning and Niu saw there was hay all over your clothes, and he thought that was weird because you never go into the rhino hold, and certainly not long enough to get covered in hay, and _you_  were really lucky that he didn't notice that the prince's breeches were also covered in hay because those happened to be in my basket. There are a few nice blankets in the skiff, may I suggest that you cover the hay with those next time?_

 

**_Unsigned note left under pikeman Shi's pillow_ **

_No, you may not. You may, however, live to see another sunrise if you forget yesterday ever happened. And never touch my skiff again._


	7. In which books are cooked, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jee tries to keep things more or less on the right track after the rousing success that was Zuko's birthday party. But Zuko is suddenly too distracted with something else to pay attention, the thief is back, and there is a great excess of Water Tribe food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's just, um, skip the excuses for lateness and go straight to the fic? This is part one of a three-parter, part two and three will most certainly not take five months. As always, many thanks to Jin for the beta.
> 
> By the way, this is the point where I accidentally deleted the whole fic and a year's worth of comments and kudos, as mentioned in the [notes to the reposted chapter 1](http://archiveofourown.org/works/339401/chapters/549142) *headdesk to infinity* I really am very sorry. At least it happened when the story isn't close to halfway yet :)

  
After decades of sailing and marching more or less around the world, Jee hadn't thought there were many new things left for him to experience. But there was a truly unique sense of absurdity to waking up in his bunk with the dawn, feeling distinctly unrested, and then remembering that he'd wasted half of the night giving the brat prince birthday kisses.  
  
The _crown prince_. Banished or not, insufferable child or not, Zuko was still the crown prince of the Fire Nation, the heir to the throne, a direct descendant of Agni himself. And Jee had pushed him up against a door and put his _mouth_ on him and... He didn't know if he should just jump overboard, lie here snickering like an idiot until General Iroh burst into the cabin with his hands wreathed in lightning, or go up to the royal cabins, throw himself on the floor, and beg for his life.  
  
When absolutely nothing had happened after he'd spent half an hour kneading the rough weave of his blanket with his fingers and wallowing in indecision, Jee recognized the brief panic attack for what it was. Zuko had made it clear that the very idea of telling his uncle about his new proclivities was not to be considered. And Jee hadn't given the brat any reason to complain, really. Quite the opposite. He'd done a damned good job yesterday, no two ways about it. Even if Jee drowned tomorrow and Zuko lived another hundred years, the brat would have to think of last night at least once a year for the rest of his life. He wouldn't be able to help it. He'd remember it at every birthday party when he was back in his palace, with high-borns and generals instead of a score of Navy rejects to toast him. He'd remember it when there was a princess or a set of concubines instead of a grizzled sailor to fête him at night, in some absurdly big bed with silk crimson sheets, instead of up against the hull of a cold old clunker of a ship. He'd remember it.   
  
Jee knew it was extremely inappropriate to feel proud of himself over that, but it really did feel like an achievement of some sort. By the time he’d warmed up with a few quick morning kata and the light coming through the red glass of the windows was clear instead of milky pink, he felt quite up to facing the day.  
  
He'd loitered in his cabin too long, though; when he finally climbed up to the bridge, Lei informed him that he'd missed all the morning's excitement. A hawk for Zuko had finally arrived from Caldera. Lei wasn't sure if it had brought any personal birthday wishes from the Fire Lord, but it had definitely carried the usual letter of credit that they could get stamped in any Fire Nation-controlled port to receive their monthly allowance from the capital. Zuko had stormed off into the harbor to find money changers and get his gold.   
  
He'd returned in a spectacular snit over an hour later and refused to explain to his uncle what was wrong. Then Haisu had asked the prince if he'd slept all right, and Zuko had thrown a completely undeserved and incomprehensible screaming fit at him, and the General had resolved the situation by sending Zuko to his cabin and ordering Haisu away to count the new money and update the ledger. Then he'd gone into town with Cook, claiming a need for fresh air and exploration of teahouses. Everybody else was either nursing a hangover from yesterday’s party, hiding from Zuko's filthy temper, or both. Jee was so relieved not to be at the center of the tension on board that it all felt no more than charmingly familiar.  
  
His mood did take a bit of a dive when he returned to his cabin to fetch the log book and found his good writing brush missing. There had been so few disappearances of random objects on the ship in the past month or so that he'd started to believe that their on-board thief had found something new to occupy himself with. But it seemed Jee had used up all of his good fortune for the week by grabbing a piece of the brat prince.   
  
Multiple pieces.   
  
Jee soldered the ends of his last spare pipa string to either side of his cabin door, just above ground level. With any luck, it would trip the thief up and give him a bloody nose next time.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
_**Paper note attached to the door of the mess room**  
  
Dear hard-working crew,  
  
While wandering through Nan Seng this morning, Master Cook and I discovered a genuine Water Tribe restaurant tucked away in the harbor district. This is the first time I've found an establishment like that anywhere south of Ba Sing Se, and unless I'm very much mistaken, none of you have ever tasted real Water Tribe cuisine before. You absolutely must try it at least once in your lives. I will be out in town during most of the day. Gather on the docks at the end of the afternoon watch, and I'll come to guide you all to the location. We should have plenty of time for a hearty meal before we leave port with the evening tide.  
  
General Iroh  
  
  
 **Written in soot on the inside of the latrine door right after General Iroh walked off the ship for an hour or two**  
  
Somebody please think of a way to stop this. I've tasted Water Tribe food, and I promise that none of you wants any. Erase this message before the General comes back from the market.  
  
Cook  
  
  
 **Written in very large characters under General Iroh's note on the door to the mess room**  
  
UNCLE, RESTAURANTS ARE A FRIVOLOUS EXPENSE. WE'RE NOT GOING.  
  
  
 **Written under Prince Zuko's note**  
  
You're right to point out that we should not be wasteful, Prince Zuko. But I happened to win a small sum in a friendly game of pai sho in town today, so I can treat everyone without touching our common funds! I look forward to introducing you to sea prunes. You must be hungry after you refused to attend your own party. And now I really must be going, I heard that an old friend of mine is in town and I want to track him down for a chat.  
  
Your uncle  
  
  
 **Written on the inside of the latrine door**  
  
Ashes. Thank you for trying, sir.  
  
  
 **Written on the inside of the latrine door in a different hand**  
  
Don't talk to him, you'll draw his attention. That was just a coincidence, he was only helping us because he doesn't want Water savage food either.  
  
  
 **Written on the inside of the latrine door**  
  
Bao, you stupid ass end of a cow-pig, Prince Zuko reads this door. And you're wrong. Lieutenant, sir, tell Bao he's stupid. Prince Zuko was trying to help, you know he would try to help, sir.  
  
  
 **Written on the inside of the latrine door**  
  
Don’t mention my name, do you want him to scream me to death?  
  
  
 **Written on the inside of the latrine door**  
  
Prince Zuko knows what your handwriting looks like, Bao. You’re the only one on this ship who messes up the stroke order in every single character he writes.  
  
  
 **Written on the inside of the latrine door in a different hand, across all the other messages**  
  
Pikeman Shi and pikeman Bao, if at any point in the next five days I'm so much as reminded that either of you exist, I will take my captain's lash and strangle you both with it. This is your final warning._   
  
  


* * *

  
  
The outing started out not quite horrible. The Water Tribe restaurant was a dim affair that smelled faintly of wet animals and beached seaweed. However, it more than compensated for its unattractive interior by serving a thick, dark-colored liquor that was surprisingly drinkable. Jee's rank got him a seat at the table next to Zuko, who had sunk from angry into sulking and then into unresponsive. Whatever was on his mind didn't seem to be related to Jee at all.   
  
That was more than a little annoying; Jee had hoped that yesterday would have been spectacular enough to keep Zuko's attention for at least a little while longer. On the other hand, the brat's brooding face was rather funny to look at when you weren't the object of his anger. Jee briefly considered trying to distract him under the table. The leather of their skirt guards was so thick and stiff that Zuko probably wouldn’t even notice a touch on his thigh unless Jee slapped him, but footsie might work. And it could be made to look completely accidental if the General happened to notice.  
  
The food quickly drove all thoughts of play from Jee’s mind, though. The seal jerky was fatty but not bad. The rest was an assortment of piping hot grey-green blobs in various extremely pungent combinations. They looked and tasted exactly like fresh, steaming intestines, and came in a soup that was pure liquid salt. To add insult to injury, they were supposed to eat the slippery blobs with spoons instead of with chopsticks like civilized people. The spoons were made of _wood_. Jee briefly considered incinerating his, but he’d probably just be given another.  
  
He obviously wasn't the only one who was less than impressed, but the men were fond of the General, and they all made a relatively good effort of choking the dreck down. Even Zuko seemed to be feeling guilty enough about skipping his uncle's party that he felt compelled to behave. He made one whiny remark about the sea prunes, but the General promised never to inflict foreign culture on him again if he just finished the portion he'd been given. Zuko chewed up all his seal jerky. Then, out of food that was actually edible, he started pushing the blobs around with his spoon and pushing them under in the oily soup. The General beamed at him and made some encouraging noises before calling for seconds for himself.   
  
Jee sniggered, and Zuko halted his futile attempt to drown the blobs in favor of shooting Jee a half-furious, half-desperate glower. Jee just smiled back before turning to strike up a conversation with Cook and Haisu. The General leaned over behind Zuko's back and joined them in bemoaning the deplorable state of military rations these days. Finally Zuko snarled that he was done, and the General praised him as if he'd caught an Avatar instead of merely eaten his vegetables. Then he began insisting that everyone else follow Prince Zuko's good example, because they absolutely couldn't return to the ship while leaving a single sea prune uneaten. Jee sighed and turned back to his plate to eat the strips of seal jerky he'd saved for last.  
  
They were gone. So was the bowl of horror soup he'd so manfully polished off. In its place stood a nearly-full bowl, sea prunes bobbing in it like a flock of rotten purplish eyeballs.   
  
Jee looked around for his beautifully empty bowl in utter confusion and found it sitting in front of Zuko's folded hands. When he looked up, Zuko smirked at him and wiped a few spots of jerky grease from his chin.  
  
The General leaned over again and began encouraging Jee to eat his sea prunes, go on now.  
  
Jee imagined that every blob he sank his teeth into was one of Zuko's royal bollocks. Why did he ever bother to wonder about what the brat could have done to get kicked out of his own country by his own father? He'd obviously been banished for the simple crime of being an evil, evil child.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
_**Note snuck under Lieutenant Jee's door shortly after the Yuan left the port of Nan Seng**  
  
Sir, for your information, I have it on reliable hearsay that several dozen sea prunes were smuggled out of the restaurant and on board for nefarious purposes. Guard your bowl vigilantly for at least two months, prunes keep a long time.  
  
Also, there's a large pot of noodles hidden in the left lower cupboard of the galley, if you need a second dinner on top of the prunes. It's picken and soy sauce. I told the others too. Except the General and Prince Zuko, of course. If you are brave enough to risk making an unauthorized pot of tea, I recommend jasmine for an upset stomach.  
  
Cook_   
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Jee knew he was probably an idiot to ladle out two portions of Cook's undeniable delicious noodles, and twice an idiot to carry both bowls up the command tower to Zuko's cabin. It was a stupid impulse. He wasn't some kind of personal servant. Zuko could just find his own damned food if he needed any extras. He certainly didn't seem to mind stealing it from other people, and bringing him more might only encourage him.  
  
But something about Cook's note bothered Jee. Not that he didn't understand why the crew tried to keep Zuko out of the loop about any activities that the General might take offense at. If Jee hadn't actually heard and seen evidence that Zuko was prepared to collude with others to keep secrets from his uncle, he probably would have assumed himself that the brat would rat them out. But Zuko had kept mum about how Jee was responsible for the disappearance of the late and unlamented mechanical bird. He'd very insistently kept mum about how Jee had been abusing his princely virtue. Maybe it was time to start trusting him a little, even if Jee couldn't very well tell anyone else why including Zuko in non-General-approved crew projects might not be as laughable an idea as it sounded.  
  
And maybe some real food would pull Zuko out of whatever funk he'd dug himself into this morning. Offering him fire flakes had earned Jee a very nice evening of kissing and frotting before; who knew what a bowl of noodles was worth. It would most likely be welcome in any case. The prince didn't eat badly on this ship, but Jee remembered what it was like to be a growing young man in the military. The portions always seemed too small, and knowing that you had no control over how much you'd get to eat and when the next meal would appear made it all unspeakably worse.   
  
Of course Zuko was in charge of this miserable operation and could theoretically just order Cook to give him more. But as far as Jee knew, the brat had never demanded more than his normal ration. Perhaps he thought it was beneath him to ask for more. Or maybe he just didn’t enjoy Cook’s food - it had to be spectacularly simple and monotonous compared to what he’d been raised on in the palace. The General had learned to like military grub, detect the significant differences between the bitter weevils and the crunchy ones, and appreciate the joys of finding an extra piece of salted picken in the soup. Zuko didn’t seem to have figured out the fine Navy tradition of culinary critique so far.  
  
Jee kept the bowls hot in his hands all the way from the galley up the stairs, past his own cabin in the tower and one more level up to where Zuko had his lair. He found the brat seated at his low table, still in full armor and writing by the glow of a sputtering candle. He squinted a little at the additional light from the corridor that fell through the open door, but didn't bother to look up.  
  
"What?"   
  
"Sir,” Jee greeted. He stepped over the raised treshold of the door and let the heavy contraption fall closed behind him. “Cook made some extra noodles for everyone. Since we've had an exhausting day and all."  
  
Zuko didn’t glance at him or even pause his scribbling. "Fine. Put it down."  
  
Behind his back, the large cedar chest that held all the scrolls and papers of Avatar lore they'd collected over the years gaped wide open. Zuko was the only one who had a key, and Jee hadn't actually seen the chest's contents in a very long time. There was a truly impressive pile of scrolls in it now. Many of them looked downright ancient or were wrapped in thick, rich-looking cloth and ribbons.   
  
Jee glared down at Zuko's ponytail while he put one bowl on the table. If the brat received enough private pocket money from his father to buy that many expensive documents, he could afford to treat his men to something nice every now and again instead of leaving it to the General to reward the crew. In all honesty, they rarely deserved rewarding for more than the fact they hadn’t mutinied yet, but that was all the more reason why Zuko should be more grateful.  
  
"Lieutenant, what do you want? I'm working," the brat told his brush. It was a nice, dark wooden brush, much like the one that had disappeared from Jee's cabin that morning.   
  
Zuko didn't even seem to have noticed that Jee was holding a second bowl. Oh. Well, then. Jee tried not to feel too disappointed. He really had hoped that the brat would be at least a little embarrassed about being alone with the man who'd been mouthing at his crotch just last night. Personally, Jee had been thinking of very little besides last night, especially with his back reminding him every moment of exactly why he preferred to horse around in bunks instead of against walls these days. For Zuko, that stupid piece of paper was obviously much more engrossing. Evil child.   
  
"Nothing, sir. Good night."  
  
Apparently, he'd let his discontent show through a lot more clearly than he'd intended, because Zuko did look up now. He peered at the bowl in Jee's hands for so long that Jee began to wonder if perhaps he should explain with words that he was suggesting they eat together, because that was an enjoyable thing to do and enjoyment was good.  
  
But Zuko apparently manage to dredge up some faraway memory of long-lost social graces.  
  
"Sit down and eat, Lieutenant."   
  
He said it without indicating the other cushion on the floor and while still staring hard at Jee's bowl, so the invitation sounded more than a little bit unnatural. An invitation it was, though. Jee smiled and settled at the table. "Thank you, sir."  
  
Zuko grunted and went back to ignoring him, this time in favor of the food. Fair enough; it was hard to talk with one's mouth full. Jee tucked in as well and took the opportunity to take in Zuko's cabin.   
  
It was hardly the first time he’d been in here, of course, but Jee always found this space strangely engrossing. It looked like someone had tried to transplant a room from a Fire Nation house straight onto the gray metal box that any ship cabin basically was, roomy or not. The look of it was _almost_ right, with the red banners and colorful altar and low furniture, but it felt off. The dark walls with their indelible salt and moisture stains were just too different from the wooden paneling that a traditional residence would have. Also, the temperature was never right. Fire Nation houses were designed to be drafty and cool in summer and comfortable in the mild winters. Metal ships, by contrast, were designed to be always the opposite temperature of what their crews wanted them to be. Boiling hot in summer, cold enough that naked skin stuck to the walls in winter. Shipbuilders were clearly people who hated sailors.   
  
And it was starting to look like Zuko's birthday had been the last balmy day of the year. They'd sailed right into a biting cold wind as soon as they left the protection of Nan Seng's bay. The sudden chill wasn't unusual for the open sea this far south during the tenth month, but it had still come as an unpleasant surprise; the dog watch and evening watch had been full of shivering people who'd shown up in their summer gear.   
  
Cold on board was always worst up in the cabins of the slender command tower, far away from the boilers and with three of the four walls bordering directly on whatever weather was going on outside. Now that Jee was sitting still instead of stomping around while dealing with their departure from Nan Seng, he could feel the chill start to seep into his blood almost at once. And judging from the faint blurring of the air above Zuko’s shoulders, the brat was already bending to stave off the cold, too.   
  
“Sir, would you like a brazier brought to your cabin?”  
  
“No,” Zuko mumbled with his mouth full. “Save the coal for the engines.”  
  
“The braziers use very little coal, sir. We can spare it.”  
  
Now Zuko sent him a perturbed frown. “I said no. This is a good way for me to practice my breath of fire. And I don’t want anything wasted.”  
  
Young people - they always thought they were being economical and self-reliant by making their own heat, and they never considered that the price of the extra food they’d need to keep firebending far exceeded the price of coal. It was something they never learned except through experience, though, so Jee just nodded. “All right, sir.”  
  
In Zuko’s case, it would probably take years for the lesson to sink in. It looked like he was still sleeping on nothing but a bare futon, like in an actual house that had planks instead of icy metal plating on the floor. Well, the brat did love being miserable, and it was his cabin. He could furnish it like an air temple if he liked. And perhaps the futon was just for show. Lei swore on his life that he'd seen the prince sleep perched on top of the big chimney, eyes open, like a snake-vulture.   
  
Grinning a little at the image, Jee leaned forward to take a look at the paper Zuko had been scribbling on. It was whipped from the table immediately.   
  
Jee blinked. "What's that, sir?"  
  
"Nothing," Zuko grumbled. He put the paper down somewhere by his legs and grabbed for his bowl again.   
  
Jee followed the example and tried to sneak a few glances at the paper in between bites. He hoped it wasn't another rumor about the Avatar. For some reason, the Avatar was always rumored to be in the most miserable, inaccessible locations inhabited by the most stupidly hostile dirt grubbers in the whole Earth Kingdom. And he was never hiding anywhere close enough that they could be back on the ship by dinnertime when their search yielded the inevitable nothing.   
  
The search parties were one activity that Jee avoided like the plague. Anyone unfortunate enough to be on them got to serve as helpless yelling target when the prince didn't find what he wanted. Jee had started using the Avatar search missions as a punishment detail for whoever of the crew was making his life hard. It was an amusing system, even if it suffered from the critical imperfection of being unsuited for chastising some of the most regular offenders. It worked on Bao. Lei was worse than useless on land, though, and Shi actually _liked_ going on the missions because he got to ride his rhino on most of them. That was unfortunate, but Jee still had the latrines roster for those difficult cases. Good, reliable old latrines roster.  
  
Zuko was chewing slowly now and staring off at the red window, as if deep in thought. That gave Jee the opportunity to crane his neck and catch a glimpse of the mysterious paper. It didn't look like a written report; there seemed to be a lot of columns on it. Maybe Zuko was looking for patterns in Avatar sightings again. Jee was fairly sure that the only pattern to be found there was one of towns that had an exceptionally high concentration of bars and drunks.  
  
He nearly jumped when Zuko set his bowl down with a loud clang.  
  
"I've decided on our next course. We'll make port at Ishihama for resupplying and then head straight to the South Pole."  
  
Oh, no. "What, again?" Jee bit his tongue. "Sir."  
  
"Yes, _again_." Zuko was starting to sound actively unfriendly now, and Jee tried to look a bit more obedient. But he didn't want to go to the South Pole. It was dangerous. He hated ice. And blasted Water savages. And the penguins - spirits, the penguins.  
  
"We've been to the South Pole twice, sir."  
  
"No, Lieutenant," Zuko said with loud and absolute certainty. "We had to turn back the first year because this useless ship couldn't deal with the pack ice. We didn't even get near the shore! And when we came in spring the second year, we could barely even land because our _gear_ was useless!"   
  
Jee certainly remembered that one. They'd progressed about a day inland, shuffling over rotten ice and laboring to drag sleds through the thick slush, when the weather turned ill with shocking speed. They were in the middle of an actual blizzard before anyone realized what was happening. The tents they’d bought up north in Yu Dao turned out to be about as good at stopping the antarctic winds as common paper. By the time they found the ship again after a frankly terrifying night of blundering through howling whiteness, most of the non-benders in the party and even a few of the benders were so frostbitten they could barely stand. It was a miracle that nothing more was lost than two of Bao's toes. Even Zuko had seemed shocked by how badly that particular trip had gone.   
  
Apparently not shocked enough not to try it again, though. He looked positively animated now.   
  
"There's something at the South Pole. I know it!” He leaned forward, good eye bright and wide. “That kind of storm _never_ happens in the middle of the fifth month, I read everything the Fire Nation knows about South Pole weather before we went in! It was no coincidence, it can’t have been."  
  
All the more reason not to return, then, in Jee’s opinion. "But the Southern Raiders reported only a handful of scattered villages during their summer patrol this year, sir. Not even a single waterbender, let alone an Avatar."  
  
"They weren't looking properly," Zuko stated.  
  
If there was one group that would leave no ice hut undemolished in order to find more waterbenders to harass, it was the Southern Raiders, but Zuko never believed anyone's eyes but his own. And when what he personally observed didn't fit his worldview, he just denied it.  
  
“Sir.” Jee leaned forward and lowered his voice. It had been over a year, but this was still a topic that the whole crew of the Yuan only spoke of in whispers. “Have you forgotten about the penguins?”  
  
Zuko shuddered, but he pulled himself back together quickly and planted a very resolute fist on the table. “We can handle the penguins. We know how high they can jump, now.”  
  
Jee shook his head. Overconfidence, one day overconfidence was going to be the death of them all. One more try. "Sir, it's almost winter. The ice fields are going to be exactly as bad as they were the first time, or worse. And we still don’t have proper ice-proof sheeting on the hull."  
  
“I thought you said putting ice-proof sheeting on a ship is as pointless as putting a dress on a rhino.”  
  
Jee sighed. “With that, sir, I meant that it gives sailors a false sense of security. Plenty of ships with that so-called ice-proof sheeting have gone down in polar waters. But it does help, especially if ships get caught between two ice floes. Our ships don’t have rounded keels, like Water Tribe sloops - those can just slide on top of the ice. But if the Yuan gets caught between moving ice, we can only hope that our hull won’t crack under the pressure.”  
  
"Then _get_ us that ice-proof sheeting and navigate carefully,” Zuko ordered. “We're going. Prepare for an incursion into Southern territory, I want to get there as early as possible." He sneered. "Unless you have more complaints, Lieutenant?"  
  
"No, sir." Jee had many extremely reasonable complaints about this idea, but none that would have any sort of effect. Penguins it was. With any luck, they’d find an impenetrable pack of ice in their way and Zuko would be forced to turn back. "I'll make arrangements."  
  
Write out a schedule. Send hawks to the nearest communication tower and request weather reports. Check last year's log book and make a list of all the gear that had failed them then. Also, lists of all the supplies they'd need to survive for at least seven months, in case they got stuck in the ice and had to winter down south. Get Haisu to check it all over with Cook and the other relevant individuals, adjust the budget, and then actually do the shopping. Figure out what kind of trinkets they could bring for the Water savages, on the off chance that they ran into a bunch that was prepared to trade them some good furs instead of running away screaming. Perhaps the General would have some ideas on that...  
  
The thought made Jee's brain screech to a halt. There was something missing in this room. There wasn't a single tea cup in sight, either on the table, on the floor, or on the chests by the wall. He even checked the altar, with its terrifying mask of Agni that bore a remarkable resemblance to Zuko’s snarliest face. No tea. Any space on the ship that failed to contain tea inevitably attracted the General in very short order, and Jee still hadn't thought of a good excuse to explain why he was suddenly acting friendly with their littlest royal.  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"Hmm." Zuko was shoveling noodles into his mouth again. Hopefully, he was actually capable of eating like a civilized person and just chose not to bother. Otherwise his lady mother was going to be very disappointed the next time she saw her spoiled little darling.  
  
"Hasn't your esteemed uncle come by with your evening tea yet, sir?"  
  
"Uncle's hosting a pai sho tournament on the bridge." Zuko dismissed the bridge, pai sho, and the General with one eloquent wave of his hand. Then he looked Jee straight in the eyes. "It's the finals. He said he'd be playing at least until midnight."  
  
Well. Really, now. That was certainly relevant information. And if Zuko was bothering to volunteer it, maybe he was prepared to abandon his Avatar paperwork for the evening and do something more pleasant with his time.  
  
"I see, sir," Jee answered with a smile. "Have you had a moment to practice the breathing technique I showed you yesterday?"  
  
A definite hint of pink appeared on Zuko's unscarred cheek.  
  
"No," he muttered. "I was busy today."  
  
"I know, sir. Helmsman Lei told me earlier that you had a very lively morning."  
  
"What?" Zuko's eyes popped open wide. He looked almost... shifty.  
  
Jee raised his eyebrows. "Is something the matter, sir?"  
  
"No! Everything's fine."  
  
"Did your esteemed uncle try to take you to a pleasure house again?" Jee knew perfectly well that nothing of the sort had happened, but watching Zuko's face change color was just so fascinating.   
  
" _No._ I was here. Working."  
  
Jee put his bowl down and set his chopsticks on the rim. He stroked along the edge of his sideburns, surreptitiously checking for bits of food, and licked his lips. "Would you like to practice a little more, sir?"  
  
He gave the futon in the corner a considering look. It was a good deal less inviting than a proper bunk, but certainly a step up from a door.  
  
"Not here," Zuko said at once. His eyes darted to the hatch, as if he thought an intruder might materialize any second. "I told you, Uncle comes in without even knocking. The rhino hold is safe. Nowhere else."  
  
No, no, no. Jee really was prepared to make a good number of concessions in exchange for somewhat regular access to a handsome and energetic young lad. But being stared at and judged by beasts when he was unclothed... No. That just wasn't going to happen.  
  
"Sir, if I may suggest another location for private appointments..." He waited until Zuko had torn his eyes away from the door. "Your esteemed uncle never comes to my cabin. You're welcome to visit."  
  
"Your cabin?" Zuko sounded surprised, as if he’d completely forgotten that Jee had a private room just like him.  
  
Jee nodded. "You know when I'm off watch, sir. It's safe. Nobody would dare come into my cabin without knocking." It had taken him only one week on board to teach the whole crew that barging in on the captain unannounced was a direct path to a month on the latrines roster. The only one who still dared invade Jee's space was Zuko, when he wanted to rant about the Avatar. "Your esteemed uncle certainly wouldn't come bother us."  
  
"Uncle never comes into the rhino hold, either." Zuko shrugged. Apparently he didn't consider people like Shi or Haisu all that significant. "And I can stay and sleep with the rhinos, afterwards. The rhino hold is better."  
  
The memory of Mai's red-eyed stare made Jee shiver. Just... no.  
  
"You can sleep in my cabin, sir. If you want."   
  
Zuko stared at him for a few moments, as if Jee had invited him to spend the night rolling around in the coal hold. "Sleep in a stupid little bunk, with you in it?"  
  
"My captain's bunk is half again as wide as a regular sailor's, sir. There's room for two people, if they're close." It was an idiotic privilege, but it was _his_ privilege. "And I don't see why you'd have problems sharing the space, sir, if you don't mind sleeping among rhinos."  
  
A shrug. "Then I'll go sleep in the rhino hold afterwards. I told you, Mai is soft." Zuko started fishing around the bowl and slurping up the last noodles.  
  
Jee scowled. Was he seriously being judged wanting as a bedmate in comparison with a large smelly animal here? "I am at _least_ as soft as any rhino."  
  
Zuko actually stopped in mid-slurp to goggle at Jee. Then he screwed his eyes shut, bit off the trail of noodles that was dangling from his mouth, and started gulping things down seemingly without chewing. His face was bright red.  
  
It took Jee a moment or two to realize that he'd just said something so outlandishly ridiculous that even _Zuko_ could tell it was funny. The kid was laughing at him. Or trying to; he looked more like he was choking to death.  
  
Jee bent his head and took a deep breath. All right, this was hardly some sort of dramatic failure. It wasn't like Zuko had anyone that he could repeat all this to. And it was kind of nice to find out that the brat was indeed capable of mirth, even if it was at Jee's expense.  
  
Jee folded his hands on the table and put on his most serious face. "Sir, I suppose I'll manage to contain my disappointment if you refuse to sleep in my cabin. But if you leave me to go spend the night with that rhino immediately after I've sucked you off, I'll have to take it as a mortal insult."  
  
Zuko froze and stared at him for a split second, one hand pressed tight against his mouth. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but his eyes actually seemed to be tearing up a little. Then he started hacking and coughing so hard that he doubled over, head ducking almost below the table's edge. His ponytail swung back and forth madly. Even the lamps on the wall and the candles on the altar seemed to be hiccuping along with him.   
  
Jee watched the sputtering light dance across Zuko's rather shiny skull and did his best not to smirk. "Let me know if you need some water there, sir."  
  
It was quite a while before Zuko surfaced from his bout of choking. His face was pink all over, with some fading white lines from where he'd been rubbing his hands up and down. Jee opened his mouth to make another joke and see if he could get the kid going again, but the grin on Zuko's face made him stop short.   
  
It was a _nice_ grin, clean and clear, so wide that Jee caught a glimpse of the gap where he'd accidentally knocked that tooth out. It looked completely genuine, and it was gone again in a flash.  
  
Zuko coughed and made a dapper attempt at looking serious. "Very well. I promise not to sleep next to you and Mai in the same night. Will that be sufficient, Lieutenant?"  
  
Oh, look at that. He was trying to play along. Jee dropped the solemn frown in favor of his most inviting smile. "Perfectly sufficient, sir. Is there anything you'd like to do tonight?"  
  
Zuko stared at him for a moment. Then he coughed again, rearranged himself on his cushion, sat up very straight, and put his hands flat on the table. It looked like he was preparing to chair a war council instead of a lewd conversation.  
  
"That thing you did at the end. Yesterday."  
  
Jee continued to smile. "Which thing, sir?"  
  
"When you put your mouth on... me. Through my clothes," Zuko muttered. His entire good ear was a lovely bright red, Jee noted with some interest.  
  
"Ah, yes, that thing. What about it, sir?" He was being mean. But just slightly, and Zuko had been mean to him often enough in the past few years. A little bit of payback wasn't going to hurt anyone.  
  
"I didn't know people did that." Zuko was starting to look annoyed and determined at the same time, as if he knew perfectly well that Jee was being obtuse but wasn't going to let that stop him from getting some.   
  
_Good for you, brat._ Jee leaned in a little closer.  
  
"I suppose you've heard the men talk about cocksucking, sir?"  
  
"Seen it," Zuko corrected.  
  
Jee winced. And here he'd been making such good progress on scrubbing his mind clean of the knowledge that Zuko had been spying on... certain people on board.  
  
"Yes. Well, many sailors don't have all that much imagination, sir. They think the only thing a mouth can do to their cock is suck it." He leaned in even further. The edge of the table was digging into his belt hard enough to feel uncomfortable, but it was worth it to see Zuko's expression from up close.   
  
"You shouldn't just go on what you've heard... or seen... about what other people do, sir. Try to picture yourself with a lover. Anyone you like, anywhere, clothed or not. Then think about what you could do to them with just your mouth. Don't think about what you should do, but what you _could._ Consider the possibilities." He reached out and very gently poked Zuko in the arm with one finger. "As if you were in the middle of a sparring match and considering all the different ways in which you might land a hit on your opponent."  
  
Zuko's eyes had gone wide. For a few long moments, he didn’t seem to blink or even breathe. He was close enough to kiss, but his gaze was far away, as if he was looking straight through Jee's head at something else entirely.  
  
Was he thinking about Jee? Or someone different? Thinking about sucking Jee? The mere idea was enough to make fire roil in Jee's stomach. Dear spirits, he'd do some terrible things to make that happen. But he couldn't imagine asking for it out loud. And the idea of telling the brat prince to get on his knees and open wide was just a little _too_ tempting to feel entirely right.  
  
He shook his head. There was nothing to stop him from fantasizing about it. And if he played his cards right, perhaps Zuko might want to try it out for himself one day.  
  
He sat back and waited until Zuko's eyes lost that glassy look.  
  
"Did you enjoy being licked through your clothes, sir?" Obviously, but Jee rather wanted to hear him admit it.  
  
"Yes." A cough. "Um. I would have. Enjoyed it more, I mean, if I hadn't been..."  
  
"Spent. You were spent," Jee prompted.  
  
"Right. Spent."  
  
"Very well, sir. Why don't you finish your work and come to my cabin? Without your armor on. Your sleeping tunic will be enough."  
  
"Okay," Zuko said at once. _Aha._ Jee imagined himself making a rude gesture at the nasty rhino.  
  
"Without a loincloth on might be helpful, too. We don't want _too_ many layers in the way. Do we?"  
  
Zuko blinked. "Yeah. Um, no. We don't. Want that."  
  
Jee was quite sure he'd smiled more in the last ten minutes than he usually did in a week. He really had to start writing these conversations down. "Excellent, sir."  
  
Zuko's lips quirked in something that might have been an aborted attempt at a smile. Then he seemed to remember where he was and shot a vaguely unsettled look at the door of his cabin. "Don't tell my uncle."  
  
This was getting silly. "Sir, you don't need to keep reminding me of that. I have nothing to gain from telling your esteemed uncle that I touched you in a... in what he would consider an inappropriate fashion. He'd be quite furious with me."  
  
Zuko blinked. "What? No. I started this."  
  
That was debatable. And even if it weren't... "You're young, sir. I very much doubt your uncle would hold you responsible here."  
  
"I'm responsible for whatever I do. Uncle knows that."  
  
"Perhaps he does, sir. But this sort of thing..." He pointed to himself, then to Zuko. "...is usually hard to take in for parents. Especially when they find their child cavorting with a man twice their age." Well over twice their age, in this case.  
  
Zuko's lip curled again, this time into a decidedly ill-tempered sneer. "He's not my _parent_. This is my responsibility, and Uncle will just have to accept that."  
  
Jee wondered if he'd ever been this miserably hostile and unpleasant towards his mother. Hmm, perhaps he had.  
  
"Sir, you should try talking to some of the men on this ship who are fathers. Nothing turns them into murderous lunatics faster than hearing that their children have found lovers. Do you remember when Pikeman Niu got that letter about how that daughter of his stationed in the Si Wong wanted to marry her firebending instructor?" Jee had to snigger at the memory. "He didn't stop howling for a whole afternoon. And then somebody poured paint stripper into him, and he actually jumped overboard to swim to the Earth Kingdom to kill that man. We had to launch a lifeboat to get him back. And then he refused to climb in, so we just floated alongside him until he had to piss and wanted back on board. But just so he could use the latrines. We had to promise to drop him back into the sea after."  
  
Not a muscle in Zuko's face even twitched.  
  
Jee hesitated. The tale of Pikeman Niu’s drunken swim was a great crew favorite, and any mention of the incident was usually enough to send most listeners into fits of laughter. On their last summer solstice celebration, the other pikemen had put on a re-enactment with three musical numbers, one a seductive dance by Niu’s ‘daughter’ in the form of Shi in a woman’s hanbok that looked like he’d stolen it from a brothel’s washing line.  
  
“Sir, maybe you could ask helmsman Lei about the whole thing? He's a better storyteller than me…”  
  
"I don't remember anything like that happening,” Zuko snapped. “When was this?"  
  
Jee frowned. "In the beginning, sir. Shortly after we visited the Western Air Temple. He..." Oh, wait. "It may have been while you were ill, sir."  
  
Zuko had spent his first handful of days on the ship holed up in his cabin, seeing no one but his Uncle. Most of the crew hadn't observed him boarding the ship, and they doubted that Prince Zuko was actually there; they only mostly believed it because some had heard him pace around at night, and new piles of soiled bandages appeared outside the prince's cabin several times a day. When they'd reached the abandoned little port close to the Western Air Temple, Zuko had finally shown himself, just long enough for everyone to see him disembark and start trekking towards the ruins with only General Iroh for company. The General had returned hours later with his nephew clinging weakly to his back. After that bit of over-exertion, Zuko had crashed completely and lain abed with a towering fever for almost two weeks. Everyone on board had felt sorry for him and wished the poor boy would get better soon.   
  
Hah. They hadn't realized that the poor boy was meek only because the General kept him drugged to the gills while his burn was dangerously infected. Afterwards, they'd all been wishing they'd thrown the demon overboard while it was still weak and helpless.  
  
"I don't give a damn about what some pikeman's stupid daughter did," Zuko hissed.  
  
Oh. Perhaps reminding him of those bad old days hadn't been a very good idea. The air of the cabin had gotten noticeably warmer, and a rather large cloud of steam was suddenly rising from the bowl in Zuko's hand. The glower he was sending Jee's way was hot with pure, genuine anger.  
  
"Sir..."  
  
Zuko's free hand curled into a fist. "And what were you all doing, taking advantage of me being sick to play around and _drink_ instead of looking for the Avatar!?"  
  
Now, now. "Sir, back then, we weren't aware how important it was. You hadn't really spoken to us yet."  
  
Zuko didn't look mollified in the slightest. "You _knew_ what our mission was!"  
  
In theory, yes, but Jee thought it wasn't quite fair to tell seasoned sailors that they were supposed to find the Avatar and expect them to take that seriously right away. It sounded like the kind of prank people usually played on new recruits. Send them out to get a bucket of striped paint from the quartermaster. Convince them they had to run between the port and starboard sides of the deck whenever the ship listed a little to keep her from capsizing. Tell them the ship’s mission was to catch the Avatar.   
  
"We didn't really understand the gravity of the situation, sir. We meant no disrespect."  
  
That rather becoming blush of a few minutes ago had turned into an aggressive splotch of red in the middle of Zuko's unscarred cheek.  
  
"The gravity of the situation? I'd been _banished!_ "  
  
"Yes, sir, but..." Jee held both hands in the air. "Sir, we didn't know a thing!"  
  
They still didn't, as a matter of fact. Prince Zuko was banished, apparently until further notice. And he wanted to find the Avatar. Jee was fairly certain there was a connection between the two and that finding the Avatar was probably one way to end the banishment, some way or another, but they'd never had any sort of confirmation about that. No one had ever dared ask Zuko, and the few times that Jee or someone else had tried to get details out of the General, the man had changed the subject.  
  
It was ridiculous, really. More than two years, and Jee still had no idea why Zuko wasn't allowed to set foot on Fire Nation soil again. It had to be something quite spectacular for the Fire Lord to have banished his only male heir. There were crimes that could easily result in banishment even for very high-placed nobles - some forms of treason, for one, or the murder or rape of someone important. But what could the crown prince have gotten up to that was bad enough to deserve this? At thirteen? Jee tried not to speculate too much, but the men loved to gossip, and some of the things they'd come up with had made even Jee's ears burn.  
  
"You don't need to know a thing, you just have to do as I say!"  
  
Jee ground his teeth. He was surprised at how deeply this sudden outburst offended him, especially since Zuko had been throwing similar screaming fits every couple of days for the last two years. Had he somehow expected the brat to act differently towards him now that they'd practically crawled into each other's clothes once?  
  
Fine. If they were going to be massively rude, Jee wasn't just going to sit there and take it. He hadn’t been afraid of Zuko in the beginning, and he wasn’t now.  
  
"Sir, you can't expect grown men to take your orders seriously if you're too picken to even confess what you did to get banished in the first place!"  
  
Jee watched Zuko's face go completely blank. Then he noticed that the brat's arm, the one still holding the bowl of noodle soup, was beginning to move up and forward.   
  
It didn't occur to Jee that he was actually, seriously getting the stuff _thrown_ at him until the bowl had already landed on his face. It fell to the table again with an extremely loud clatter.   
  
Jee raised his hand, dragged it across his closed eyes, and then stared at his dripping fingers in mute disbelief. There were shreds of meat and noodle clinging to his skin. Tepid things were seeping under his collar and soaking into his shirt. And Zuko was gaping at him, as if he couldn't imagine how his food had suddenly moved to Jee's head. He looked perfectly mortified.  
  
Before Jee had thought of something politer to say than _what the fuck is wrong with you_ , Zuko shot to his feet, grabbed his paper from the floor and stuffed it under his belt, and then stalked to the door.  
  
"Shut up, Lieutenant," he snapped in passing. "Clean that mess and get out of my cabin. I'm going to train."  
  
And apparently that was that.  
  
Jee pulled a bit of noodle out of his hair and threw it at the brat's back, but it fell far short.  
  
  
  
 _To be continued in part two_


	8. In which books are cooked, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since deletionfail, over half of this fic’s old kudos have magically come back. I love you people. Please have a triple-length chapter with shenanigans and smut and notes and hints of actual plot and also *drumroll* Naked Iroh Time. I’ve been trying to claw my way out of crappy artist-dom, so there’s also links to a few illustrations of various degrees of sketchiness. (ETA: Now with working links!) Nothing really NSFW. Extra thanks to Jin for beta-ing this monster.
> 
> This is a direct continuation of the last scene of the previous chapter, in which Jee and Zuko were gearing up for a Moment when they were rudely ~~cockblocked~~ interrupted by the topics of the Avatar and Zuko’s banishment.

Clean up? Like hell was he going to wash the brat's floor, and certainly not after that display. Fucking infant. 

Fortunately, Jee didn't have to take more than one turn down the corridors before he ran into Bao and Lin Wei, who were standing around looking unoccupied and up to no good. 

“Shut up,” Jee told them before they had a chance to open their mouths and comment on his be-noodled appearance. “Prince Zuko dropped some food in his cabin. Get mopping.”

“Yes, sir.” Bao was staring at the top of Jee’s head so hard that there almost had to be some visible mess of noodle and picken up there, but at least they left. 

Jee exhaled a quick, hard burst of flame. It would be all over the ship by morning that the captain had been doused in food scraps by the brat prince. That little monster would be a lot more tolerable if he could manage to go a week without feeding Jee a helping of public humiliation. 

A good shower would help put it out of his mind, and make him smell a little less like a dog-rabbit’s dinner. Jee marched on straight to the showers. 

He’d already jerked the door open and taken two steps into the badly-lit room by the time he realized that he wasn't alone. 

"Good evening, Lieutenant. Or good night, rather. We missed you at the pai sho tournament!" 

The General gave Jee a concerned look and continued folding his robes into a neat little pile on one of the side shelves. "Are you well? We had to finish early, most of my opponents were too tired from yesterday. Or feeling a bit queasy."

 _Damn it._ "Good evening, sir. My apologies, I must have missed the announcement." Jee bowed and felt a noodle slip between his collar and his neck. It slithered down his chest like a long, slick worm, and he hated Zuko just a little bit more.

"I'm glad to hear you're in good health. Next time, then." General Iroh nodded and went back to disrobing. Jee politely stared at a particularly interesting stain on the wall while peeling off his own armor and shirt. Ashes, he really had gotten soaked. He'd have to send his clothes down to be washed for the second time in two days. Hopefully Shi wasn't on the laundry roster anymore.

"Lieutenant?"

The General was standing at the showers, hand extended, as if he'd been about to turn one of the water levers. He was wrinkling his nose.

Jee tried not to sigh. "Yes, sir?"

"Do I smell picken and soy sauce?"

"I'm afraid so, sir."

The General raised his eyebrows. "What happened? We're hardly rocking enough to justify spilling good food all over ourselves."

"Prince Zuko threw a bowl at me, sir." He should probably have kept the brat out of the conversation and just made something up, but right now, he wasn't in the mood to help Zuko look less like the screeching toddler he was behaving as.

The General's eyebrows made a credible attempt at reaching his receding hairline. "Prince Zuko? Why would he do that?"

Jee balled up his soup-soaked shirt with unnecessary vehemence. "We were having noodles, sir. And then he got angry."

A warm, fond smile spread over the General's face. 

"Oh, I remember! Prince Zuko used to throw food when he squabbled with his sister at the table." He seemed to somber a little. "Only when he was a very small boy, though. What happened?"

"Nothing in particular, sir." And that was all Jee felt like disclosing, really. 

Judging from the expectant look on the General's face, though, he was going to want a more thorough explanation for why Jee had upset the little darling.

"I love noodles, Lieutenant." The General formed that perfectly bland and dangerously innocuous smile that could make men much stronger than Jee piss their loincloths. "As does Prince Zuko. Picken and soy sauce is one of his favorites, in fact. I find it hard to believe he'd throw a good bowl of noodles away for no reason at all. He's not five years old anymore."

Might as well confess to some vaguely inappropriate action right away, or the General would start digging and maybe discover some of the things that Jee _really_ didn't want him to know. 

"I asked Prince Zuko why he was banished, sir." In a way.

The General's smile dwindled immediately. 

"Ah. I see," he murmured. His shoulders sagged a bit, and he turned away from Jee. After another few moments of silence, he turned on the shower and busied himself with lathering up. 

Just when Jee thought the conversation was over and he had implicit permission to start washing and ignore everything around him, the General spoke up again. 

"Lieutenant, I'm glad that you're taking an interest in talking with Prince Zuko. Truly, I am. But that's not a good topic of conversation with him."

Jee turned the lever of the nearest shower anyway. The General wasn't that stuffy about protocol. "Yes, sir. I did get that impression." 

It took him two tries to find a lever that actually made water flow. The General glanced over. "Lieutenant, is our plumbing malfunctioning again? It seems to me that those showers haven't been working properly for quite a while now."

"They're just clogged up, sir. Salt building in the pipes again. We should find a specialized mechanic to look at it the next time we make port." Jee frowned. The General was right, the showers had been off for weeks. Normally, Haisu would have brought someone in to fix them at least two ports ago. It wasn't like him to be so forgetful. And they had to be damned careful of the plumbing on this good old wreck; it was ancient, and the showers had broken down entirely several times before. Having to wash on deck with buckets wouldn’t be that much of a bother in summer, but now that they were sailing into cold weather…

The General chuckled. "Don't mention to Prince Zuko that we might need to spend something extra. He seems to be in a bit of a stingy mood." He heaved a dramatic sigh. "That restaurant was hardly expensive… And I was so happy that my nephew was never all that budget-conscious. He must be bored if he's looking for new things to get angry about."

Jee almost grinned. There was hot water washing the noodle smell off of him, he had a full belly, and the General was apparently still a bit unhappy with his nephew and would probably make the brat pay with extra enforced tea shopping the next time they found a market. And maybe, just maybe, Zuko would get over himself quickly enough to come visit Jee's cabin tonight, like they’d agreed. Things were looking up again. 

But perhaps not for long, he remembered. "It's probably because Prince Zuko is planning some additional expenses soon, sir. He told me to prepare for an expedition to the South Pole."

"Really?" The General pulled an extremely unenthusiastic face. He rallied after only a moment, though. "Ah. Well, the ice is very beautiful during winter, and we may even get to see the Southern lights. I'm sure it will be a lovely experience. So long as we're much more careful about frostbite this time." 

“I should hope that we won’t be venturing inland at all, sir. That was a right disaster last year. We were lucky no one died on the way back to the ship.”

The General nodded. “Our good Navy is filled with fearless and hardy men, but…” He sighed. “My nephew is as fearless and hardy as the best of them, and I’m not surprised that he’s determined to search the Pole as thoroughly as he’s searched everywhere else. But we Fire folk don’t belong on the ice. I would definitely prefer to cruise along the shore this time.” He turned his shower off and walked over towards his clothes, steam billowing off his skin.

Jee quickly rinsed the last of the soap from his hair and turned off his own shower. Best bring this up now - it would only be awkward if he tried again later. "Sir, may I ask something?"

"By all means."

"Sir, I’ve been wondering… Why was Prince Zuko banished from the Fire Nation?"

The General stared at him in silence for so long that Jee almost spoke up again to retract his question.

"I need to think for a few moments, Lieutenant." The General tied his sleeping robe and patted his expansive belly. "And thinking always works better on a full stomach. Why don't you show me where these picken noodles came from, in the middle of the night?"

Jee closed his eyes and imagined kicking himself overboard. He’d be getting the most bug-infested rice biscuits for a week if this got Cook in trouble with his great friend General Iroh. 

"Yes, sir, of course. Just a moment, please." He stuffed his sodden clothes into the laundry sack, pulled the basket full of old robes from the upper shelf, and rummaged around in it until he found something that would fit.

They walked to the front of the superstructure in silence, Jee a respectful two paces behind the General with the pieces of his armor under one arm. When they stepped into the dark galley and Jee made to kindle the lamps, the General lifted his hand. 

"No, Lieutenant."

Jee frowned. It was a dark night; the clouds were a rather ominous grey, and thick enough to block out the moon and stars entirely. Even if they gave their eyes some time to adjust, there wouldn't be enough light to...

A large burst of fire roared past the window, bathing the empty galley in a glowing shade of reddish orange. Almost as soon as it had faded, a new fireball careened past from a slightly different direction.

The General smiled and nodded at the window. "My nephew is training. Let us eat by the light he's so thoughtfully providing us."

Oh. Was that the secret to living with Zuko day in, day out and still staying cheerful and relaxed? Intentionally misinterpreting everything the brat did as some sort of attempt at helpfulness? Maybe Jee could try that. Or not. He probably didn't have the patience for it. 

But if he was going to continue spending this much time in extremely close quarters with Zuko and his disgusting temper, and get something out of it other than noodles in his face, he was going to need a mind trick of his own to keep from throttling the brat whenever he was being a miserable pest. Maybe imagining him naked and panting for Jee's touch would help. Oh, yes, that would definitely help. He should try it out as soon as possible.

Jee lifted the pot of clandestine noodles out of the closet for the second time that night and ladled out a bowl for the General. In the ten seconds that took him, the General managed to produce a steaming pot of tea out of absolutely nowhere. He handed Jee a cup, made himself comfortable against the big iron cooking range, and dug in.

"Ah. Delicious! Master Cook should know better than to think I would ever object to picken noodles, no matter the reason for their creation. Oh, Lieutenant, do sit down. We’re not on duty." 

But after just a few mouthfuls, he set the bowl down and picked up his own teacup. "Now. About why Prince Zuko is here, instead of in Caldera." He took a sip, and his face suddenly turned grave. "I'm afraid I cannot give you an answer, Lieutenant. Prince Zuko has impressed upon me that he doesn’t want anyone on this ship to know the details of why he was banished from his home."

"Why is that, sir?" Jee settled down on one of the grains chests, lifted the teacup, and inhaled. Ginseng wasn't his favorite by far, but through what could only be spirit magic, the General always made any flavor of tea delicious.

The old man sighed. "Prince Zuko never told me why, precisely. But I believe he fears that if you were to learn the truth, you will no longer accept him as your commander."

Jee blinked. "What do you mean, sir?"

"Exactly what I just said.” The General was studying the contents of his own cup. “He thinks you will lose all respect for him if you find out the reason for his banishment, and refuse to sail with him any further."

All right, he'd known Zuko must have done something outrageous, but this was starting to sound downright extreme. "Is it really that bad, sir?"

The General set his cup down with a rather loud clang.

"I promised Prince Zuko that I won't disclose what happened. I will not break that promise unless absolutely necessary." He looked Jee straight in the eyes and frowned. The fire outside the window made deep shadows bleed along the lines of his face. "But I would not allow my nephew to be in charge of this ship and the men on it if I believed him unfit for the responsibility. Prince Zuko may have much to learn yet, but he's a capable young man of good character, regardless of what others may have told you. Do not listen to malicious rumors, Lieutenant."

"I wasn't asking because I'm worried about his leadership skills, sir." He _was_ worried about those, but there was only so much Zuko could do wrong while they were simply roaming the seas more or less at random. It wasn't like the brat was in a position to create real mayhem. "I was just... trying to understand Prince Zuko better."

Tension visibly melted from the General's face. 

"Ah. That’s kind of you." He picked up his cup again and took a long sip. "Good luck, Lieutenant. I may not be able to tell you anything, but I hope you manage to convince Prince Zuko to confide in you more. He could use someone to talk to.” 

A large burst of firelight from outside seemed to race along the gleaming metal of the pots along the wall. 

“Someone who isn't me," the General added.

The old man sounded almost... sad. Jee leaned forward a bit, puzzled. "Sir?"

The General turned towards the galley's window for a few moments, as if to bask in the bursts of light from Zuko's impromptu evening training. He looked as content as always, but tired. 

"I find it hard to speak with my nephew about some things these days. He seems to be hiding from me so often." His smile turned wistful. "Oh, don't mind me, Lieutenant. Parents do so dislike it when their children grow up and decide to ignore all their well-intentioned counsel. Young sparrowkeets never fly when their parents nudge them, but jump out of the nest as soon as no one’s looking. You know how it goes."

"I wouldn't know, sir. I don't have any children."

The General chuckled. "I don't know whether to congratulate you or bemoan everything that you're missing out on, Lieutenant." He leaned over to refill the cup Jee had barely touched. "Have more of that tea, it's good for your stomach. Now… I suspect that my nephew refuses to talk with me for the same reason that he doesn't want you to know the details of his banishment. He is keeping secrets, and he believes these secrets are so damning or shameful that I would think less of him if I found out."

Something froze in Jee's gut. The old man couldn't have found out. If he even _suspected_ , he'd have killed Jee already.

"Surely Prince Zuko can't be hiding anything that bad from you, sir."

The General grinned, and Jee’s insides untangled themselves. "Oh, I expect it's some sort of embarrassing adolescent misbehavior that we will all laugh about in a few years' time. But it probably looks enormous in his mind right now." 

His smile faded. 

"I wish I could be of more help to him in these confusing times, but it's difficult for an old man like me to remember what hopes and fears occupy the mind of one so young. I should have asked you to recruit one or two ship’s boys for our voyage, Lieutenant. Someone of my nephew’s age needs friends, not just old uncles." He sighed. "It isn't good for him to rely on me alone."

Jee sipped his tea and considered his next words. He wasn't even going to try to pick apart whatever was going on between Zuko and his uncle - if anything was actually going on, besides Zuko being his paranoid self. But he _had_ promised the brat to try and warn the General away from pleasure house visits and other unwanted gifts.

"Sir, this is just a... well, an impression, sir. But could it be that Prince Zuko is feeling that you're pressuring him? Into certain things?" 

The General looked surprised.

"You noticed?"

After a moment, Jee realized that the old man was actually expecting an answer. He nodded. "Yes, sir. With the commotion around Prince Zuko's birthday, and all."

The General nodded back and reached for the bowl of noodles he'd abandoned earlier. "Yes, Prince Zuko has been rather anxious of late. You see, he feels that he... Well, he _did_ miss a deadline, of sorts. It's traditional for the Fire Lord to officially announce his heir on the day that heir comes of age. Obviously, no such announcement has been made, or we would have been informed of it."

He stared at the window again. The fire had grown fainter, as though Zuko was moving his exercises away from the superstructure and towards the bow.

"Does that mean Prince Zuko is no longer crown prince, sir?" That was… unexpected.

"Oh, he's crown prince. For now. He's the eldest, so the Fire Lord has no other children who are of age." The General stirred his bowl, absently. "But as you may know, Prince Zuko's younger sister will come of age in less than two years. He’s afraid that if he does not return home by then, she may become the one who is presented as the heir upon her sixteenth birthday."

Spirits, royal politics. Jee had deliberately avoided thinking about those ever since Ba Sing Se. When Fire Lord Azulon was suddenly succeeded by Prince Ozai instead of the great General Iroh, the whole army from the lower officers down had collectively stopped trying to make sense of what went on in Caldera. 

The General had never once mentioned his lost crown, and Jee was sure nobody on board had ever had the courage to ask about it. It didn’t really look like the old man was unhappy not to have inherited. Maybe he thought himself too old to rule, and trusted his brother enough to grant him the throne. They might even have agreed on it. Jee had been under the impression that the Fire Lord’s oldest offspring was always the heir, but perhaps that rule wasn’t as iron-clad as he’d thought. Especially if there was a chance that Zuko would lose his place in the order of succession to a younger sibling.

"Do you think something like that could happen, sir?"

"It's not unlikely. Princess Azula is certainly very capable." The General sighed. "My nephew had barely begun his official training as crown prince when he was banished. He’s been away from the court for years, not even allowed to correspond with those members of the nobility and military with whom he would normally be forging alliances during this time. They remember him only as a callow boy by now. Every day that he spends away from Caldera makes his political position more uncertain. And he's keenly aware of that."

For a moment, the old man looked almost angry. It was hard to tell in the semi-darkness. Zuko seemed to have stopped bending entirely, because there was hardly any light coming through the window beyond.

"Of course, it is always the Fire Lord who has the final say. The child he prefers will rule."

Ah. Right, then. Jee still had the feeling that he was missing half of what the General was trying to infer, but he was interested in spite of himself. "What do you think is going to happen, sir?"

"I don't know. It's a very complicated situation. But I strongly suspect it may not be resolved in the way Prince Zuko hopes it will." 

"If Prince Zuko loses the crown, sir, will he be banished forever?" Jee wasn't sure he liked that idea. On the one hand, he wasn't all that nostalgic for home, he enjoyed being at sea, and life on this clunker had been getting a lot more enjoyable lately. He wouldn't mind living like this for a while longer. But if Zuko's banishment became permanent, he might be forced to give up having a ship entirely and travel on his own. Then Jee and the others would be stuck in the royal harbor again. With their records, most of the crew would never find anyone to enlist them again, and he could think of at least four people on board who'd simply get arrested at once if they set foot on Fire Nation soil again. Chances that Jee himself would ever get another commission were about as good as Zuko’s chances of finding the Avatar.

The General sighed again and reached for his tea. 

"I truly don't know, Lieutenant. My brother is an unpredictable man sometimes." He took a long sip. "But lately, I've been attempting to... prepare Prince Zuko for the worst, so to speak. I've talked to him about considering the possibility that the Fire Lord will not allow him to come home. About what his other options are, and how it might be healthier for him to concentrate more on what generally occupies the minds of young men of his age. There are things he should not deny himself indefinitely, until some faraway day when he might find his prize. Things like companionship, for instance." He chuckled. "In all its many forms."

"Sir?," Jee prompted when the General had remained silent so long that there was almost no steam rising from the tea anymore.

"He's not been taking it well," the General murmured. "He thinks I no longer share his goals and convictions. And he feels betrayed." He exhaled quietly, folded both weathered hands around his teacup, and warmed it up again. "Now he still accepts my firebending teachings, but he's become very reluctant to truly share other things with me." 

The creases on the old man's face seemed to deepen with genuine grief. Jee felt a pang of sympathy. The rudeness Zuko had been displaying towards his uncle in public was probably only a shadow of what he displayed in private, then.

"I'm sorry, sir." He wished he could say something like _I'm sorry your nephew is such an ungrateful little shit, you deserve better_ , but that wouldn't go over as intended.

The General mustered a wan smile. "Oh, I can't really blame him. It’s time for him to become a man, and doubting his elders is a part of that. I just hope I'm not the only one he's begun to doubt."

Jee was still deciding what to say to that when a shout rang down from the bridge, faint but still audible in the galley.

“Hold fast!”

Jee braced his feet on the floor. The General quickly put his cup down behind the metal gander that lined the top of the range, held on to the bar with one hand, and snatched his half-eaten bowl of noodles from the table just as the ship began to roll.

The room tilted sideways; the pans on the wall clanked together, and the pot of noodles on the range began to slide. It vanished behind the General’s back and then reappeared on his other side before coming to a stop against the gander. The General looked behind him in alarm, then seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as the pot settled.

On the other side of the wall, in the crew’s mess, something fell with a metallic clatter. The noise was followed at once by a chorus of sleepy groans and curses at whoever hadn’t stowed their armor properly.

Then the world began to right itself again. The General peered up at the ceiling. “Was that it?”

“I think so, sir.”

The galley’s scales had almost stopped swinging on their ceiling chain when Lei’s voice rang around the ship again.

“Clear!”

The General slowly loosened his grip on the gander. “Were we expecting rough seas tonight, Lieutenant?”

“No, sir. But things change fast along this part of the southern coast.” Jee put a hand on the scales to stop the damned swinging. “Although I think this was just a rogue wave, sir. It’s not even raining.”

The General smiled broadly. “Aha! There must be a very displeased waterbender somewhere.”

“There’s no waterbenders at the South Pole, sir.”

“That is true.”

They sat in silence for a while as the General finished off the last of his noodles. Then he wiped his mouth, smiled, and reached over to refill Jee's cup again.

"I'm curious, Lieutenant. How did you come to share a meal with Prince Zuko? Before your unfortunate little disagreement."

Jee tried to look faintly bored, as if it was a profoundly uninteresting story that General Iroh would surely not care to hear.

"I brought Prince Zuko his share of Cook's evening snack, sir, and he invited me to sit with him."

The General's smile widened. "I see. That's quite bold of him."

"Sir?"

"To tell you the truth, Lieutenant, I'd been wondering for quite a while if my nephew would finally figure out how to go beyond arguing with you."

Jee's heart skipped a beat. "Sir? I don't get your meaning."

The General patted his shoulder before turning to the range and starting another tea pot. "You got off on the wrong foot with him, and he isn't very good at talking to people. But that doesn't mean he dislikes you!"

"I… wouldn't have guessed, sir."

"He doesn't dislike you, I'm sure of that much." The corners of the General's mouth dropped for a moment. "Well. I'm not sure he actually _likes_ you. But I think he does want you to be impressed with him, so that you might spend time with him and let him learn from you."

Jee frowned. "I don't see what Prince Zuko might want to learn from me, sir." Apart from the things that the General was most certainly, hopefully, _not_ alluding to.

The empty teacup in his hand was replaced with a fresh one. "Oh, I can think of several skills you have that Prince Zuko admires and wants for himself. You are very good at leading men, and an excellent firebender. And very confident in your abilities."

The praise made something warm move in Jee's chest. "Thank you, sir. But you have all of those skills as well."

The General smiled, a little sadly.

"Perhaps. But as we’ve just established, Prince Zuko hasn't been in the mood to consider me a good example for quite some time now." He lifted his teacup towards Jee, as if to toast him. "Which is why you have one very important advantage over me. Namely, that you are not me." 

This was getting confusing. "Does that help, sir?" 

A nod. "I think so. You are not Prince Zuko's boring old uncle, who pesters him with unwanted advice and knows about every single one of his youthful mistakes and indiscretions. You are not someone he once trusted and now feels betrayed by."

“Sir, I can’t imagine that Prince Zuko would feel you _betrayed_ him somehow.” He didn’t know what went on behind Zuko’s nasty scowl, but he’d seen Zuko and the General interact for well over two years. The kid loved his uncle.

The General looked pensive.

“Perhaps ‘betrayed’ is too strong a word. But he certainly thinks that I no longer understand him.” Another sigh. “He… finds it difficult to stomach that I am apparently not the kind of man he thought I was. The idea has been brewing in his head for quite a while. I merely confirmed his worst suspicions with the things I’ve been telling him recently.”

He blinked, and then gave Jee a long, considering look. “Perhaps he’s searching for different guidance. Different examples. And perhaps he thinks you have the potential to be one.”

“Sir?”

The General narrowed his eyes for a moment and then nodded, as if he’d come to some sort of conclusion.

“You are a man who has once faced the loss of his honor, just like my nephew. Zuko can certainly tell as much - he only has to look at you.” The General tapped a finger against his hair. 

Jee suppressed the urge to touch the shorn bristles on his own head. He’d forgotten what the weight of a topknot was really like, but for a moment, he thought he could feel the old pull at his scalp.

A brief smile ghosted along the General’s lips. “But you have lived through your dishonor. You survived, and thrived, and claimed a place for yourself in the world. You have found a way to live a good, fulfilling life again. I think Zuko is curious to know how you accomplished that.”

Jee looked at his hands. “Sir, I don’t have anything that you didn’t give to me. The effort wasn’t mine.”

“I helped. But you did what you did by yourself. Even when a man is down on his knees, it is no easy thing to take a hand that is extended. To stand again, and accept what help is offered to you. To make something new for yourself to replace what you lost, instead of exhausting yourself with vain attempts to recover what you once had.” The General’s fingers closed over Jee’s for a moment. “It is no easy thing. If it were, Zuko would have managed it a long time ago.” 

Jee looked up. The General’s face was drawn, tired.

“I had expected him to manage it long before now,” the old man murmured. “He’s clever, and strong, and young, but still he… Sometimes I don’t understand why he _refuses_ to listen, and I feel disappointed with…” 

He took a deep breath and let it go. Then he shook his head, with an abrupt vehemence that made Jee blink. 

"You observe correctly, Lieutenant. Prince Zuko does feel pressured by me. He feels that I am always watching, and knowing, and judging, and that any mistake he makes might be the one that will finally make me give up on him." Something fierce flashed in the old man’s eyes. "He is _wrong_. He is my child. Nothing he says or does could lessen him in my eyes, and no disagreement we have could make me turn against him. But he doesn't understand that yet."

The General stared at Jee with a careful, wary sort of expectation. "I think he hopes that you will help him without judging him. That he might have more space to breathe, in your presence."

Jee tried to take that in for a moment. It sounded reasonable in theory, but also a lot more complicated than the Prince Zuko he'd been getting acquainted with for the past couple of years. Perhaps he'd better just file all of this away for later consideration. Consideration at a time when he wasn't in the same room as the brat's uncle, and could manage to think of being acquainted with Zuko without thinking of sex and then feeling his balls trying to crawl up into his body under the General's stare.

"I... see, sir. If Prince Zuko thinks that my humble teaching skills might be of some use to his glorious search for the Avatar, I’m at his command," he joked. 

The look on the old man's face turned from pensive to furiously displeased so fast that it shocked Jee's blood cold.

"Lieutenant," General Iroh enunciated in a slow, hard rumble. "You are being dense on purpose, and I grow tired of it. Zuko is not a piece of machinery that can only work in one single way for one single purpose, he is a _boy!_ Do try to imagine that perhaps this boy wants you for a friend, not use you as a tool!"

Jee quickly rose to his feet, bowed, and straightened up into the most formal military posture he could manage in the cramped space of the dark galley. Too far, too bold, why couldn’t he just _stop_ saying stupid things to people who could have him whipped or killed on a whim?

"Yes, sir. I apologize, sir. I meant no offense to Prince Zuko."

The General gave him a long and not _quite_ threatening stare over his teacup. "Lieutenant, you're not obliged to be friendlier with my nephew than you wish to be. But most of our crew look to you for cues on how they should treat Prince Zuko. And I know that he can be childish sometimes, but that is no reason for you to stoop to that level yourself. _You_ are not sixteen, after all."

“I apologize, sir.”

“You are no better at feigning contrition than you ever were, Lieutenant.” The set of his mouth radiated disappointment, enough to make Jee want to crawl under the table and stay there until the old man went away and forgot Jee existed. “Why would you mock my nephew’s quest to my face?”

“I spoke out of turn, sir,” Jee said, trying to sound contrite and knowing he wasn’t fooling anyone; indeed, the General’s frown only deepened. 

“ _Lieutenant._ ”

Jee took a deep breath. “Sir, we… The crew and I, we follow you, sir, of course. Always. But we find it difficult to keep faith when our mission is so… unclear.” He congratulated himself on not saying “ridiculous” or “crazy”.

The General nodded. “Yes, I do understand that. But it is Zuko’s mission to seek the Avatar, and we are all here to support him in that endeavor.” His face seemed to sharpen. “And while your loyalty to me is nothing but commendable, and I am very grateful for it, you should follow Prince Zuko as well. Not just me.”

When Jee didn’t answer, the old man just sighed, turned to the water ton next to the range, and began to ladle his tea kettle full again.

“Lieutenant, hand me a platter from the shelves behind you. And some cups. I should bring tea to the men on watch, they could catch a chill in this sudden cold.”

“Yes, sir. Here you go.”

“Thank you.”

For a few minutes, Jee watched the General putter about. Best hold his tongue a little until the old man had cheered himself up again with his tea-making.

“Sir,” he ventured when an assortment of small, steaming cups had gathered on the tray. “May I ask a question?”

The General lowered the flame of the range with barely more than a look. “Yes.”

“Do you truly believe Prince Zuko can find the Avatar?”

The General seemed to hesitate for a long moment. He tugged at his beard, the way he only did when he was truly considering something.

Then he shook his head as if to bring himself back to reality. “No. I don’t think he can.” 

“Sir, then why do you…”

“The commander of this mission is Prince Zuko. Not I,” the General interrupted bluntly. “He thinks he can find the Avatar and that it will bring him everything he desires. Just like we once believed we could breach that wall and find more glory and riches than we could have dreamed of.” His stare was intent, as if he wished to remind Jee that he, too, had once felt completely convinced that bringing down the Great Wall of Ba Sing Se would be a triumph. “We were gravely disappointed. And one day Zuko, too, will find out that the wall he’s trying to breach is as thick as the very earth it is rooted in, and that there are no riches behind it. He is no more delusional than we were. Only younger.”

“All right, sir,” Jee conceded. He desperately wanted to fish for details, but the General’s voice had taken on that particular soft rumble that indicated he was quite out of patience.

“Lieutenant, would you do me a favor?”

As if he’d ever have the choice to refuse. “Always, sir.”

Then he noticed the look in the General’s eyes. The old man didn’t seem annoyed, not really - he looked almost imploring.

“Try to do for my nephew what I did for you. Forgive him when he wrongs you, and be there for him when he reaches the end of his endurance.” The General’s mouth twisted into an unhappy grimace. “He _will_ reach the end of it someday, and I’m afraid he… I’m no longer certain that he’ll allow me to find out when he needs help.” 

Jee frowned. He’d never gotten the impression that Zuko had to expend any effort to behave like an overwrought lunatic. It seemed to come to him as naturally as breathing, with very little endurance involved. 

“Do you think something’s about to happen, sir?”

“Some day, surely. For instance, if his sister is confirmed as heir in his stead, I don’t know if he…” The General seemed to give himself a mental shake. He looked at Jee. 

“Did Zuko tell you why he wishes to go to the South Pole all of a sudden? He was talking to me about Whale Tail Island only a few days ago, and Kyoshi Island as well. I had the impression that he was quite undecided.”

“He said he thinks there has to be something at the South Pole, sir. Because we tried and failed to investigate there twice before.” Jee remembered the way Zuko had been staring out the window before suddenly announcing his desire for a polar expedition. “It did feel a little like a snap decision, sir.”

The General peered at him for a few long seconds.

“I do not like it when my nephew is visited by these… bouts of inspiration,” he muttered. “What was I saying… Ah, yes. Lieutenant, no matter how my nephew behaves, or seems to… You will not help yourself, or him, or anyone on this ship if you do nothing but push back against everything Zuko says and does. He feels that his time is short, and I think he’s increasingly desperate to make his quest have some sort of tangible result.” 

The General uncurled one finger from his teacup and pointed it straight at Jee. “He will not thank you if he feels you’re hindering him, especially if he thinks you’re doing so on purpose. Part of growing up for him is figuring out who is truly with him and who is against him. If you continue to be as recalcitrant as you’ve been for the past couple of years, Zuko might start seeing it as true hostility rather than mere insubordination.” 

Was he being accused of something here? All right, he _had_ been acting rather deliberately unhelpful for most of this journey, but that didn’t mean he’d done anything _wrong_. Or at least, not anything punishable. “Sir, I don’t…”

The General raised a hand to forestall him.

“Lieutenant.” The stare he gave Jee felt like it weighed ten years. “Tread carefully. Don’t let yourself become an enemy to my nephew. It would sadden me if you did such a thing, and it would sadden him as well. He’s not the sort of person who wants to be anyone’s enemy, and he certainly doesn’t want to be yours.”

Jee nodded respectfully and took an overly long sip of his tea to give himself a moment to think. He still felt more confused than anything about what the General was saying, and he definitely had to ponder this at his own leisure later rather than make promises right now, but…

The brat hadn’t seemed all that crazy lately. He wasn’t even going on about the Avatar as much as he used to. Jee had spent more time alone with him in the past three months than in the previous two and a half years put together, and it had been almost… Nothing like being with someone he might like to have as a lover, no, but it had been different. 

He remembered Zuko's hands dropping away from his face to reveal that happy grin, and what it had felt like to have those fingers cup the back of his head and hold him close while he came. How dazed and grateful the kid had looked when Jee had been on his knees before him. 

_I want more_ , he’d said.

Maybe the General was on to something. Maybe Jee really could do something for the kid, accomplish more here than just getting himself an amusing night-time friend. Maybe he could _help_ , and Zuko would know it and like him for it. The thought made the corners of Jee’s mouth curl up all by themselves. No matter how pathetic he felt about getting so much enjoyment out of simply being appreciated, after all the disappointment he’d been through, there was still nothing quite like knowing he’d been useful - like having it acknowledged that he’d made a difference.

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

The General smiled faintly. “That is all I ask,” he said. “Just… Try not to push him away if he comes to you. It would be such a great relief to me if someone else were close enough to look out for him when I can’t.”

“Sir,” Jee murmured. He bowed again and tried not to feel like he was already trampling all over the old man’s trust. There was no shame in what he was doing. Zuko was of age, and willing, and Jee had been nothing but patient and kind with him. He was trying to do right by the brat. He was doing _nothing_ wrong.

When he rose, the General was staring into his empty teacup with a strangely empty expression. He looked every day of his sixty-odd years.

Perhaps Zuko wasn't the only one who was in need of someone he could breathe more easily around. Jee looked at the curve of the old man's back and wished he was still in a position to claim some sort of real friendship with General Iroh. He'd destroyed that at Ba Sing Se, though. The best he could do now was not make the man's life any harder. If giving Zuko the benefit of the doubt would help with that, Jee would do it. He owed the General that much. And it was something he'd already been working on, anyway.

“Sir?”, he ventured. “Are you all right?” 

The General closed his eyes and rubbed his face with one hand.

“I tire more easily these days,” he murmured. “Lieutenant… I cannot tell you why Zuko is the way he is. But…” He took a slow, deep breath. “You, and I, and Zuko, and many of the people on this ship, we have all been in a moment… a time, or a place… where we lost so much of ourselves that we can never really leave it behind.”

Jee frowned. “Sir?”

The darkness of the galley seemed to cling to the General’s portly figure.

“Five years ago, I believed that a day would come when I wouldn’t see the face of my son on every young soldier,” he murmured. Then he looked up. “But it only gets worse as time goes by. Do you still think about Ba Sing Se, Lieutenant?”

Jee pretended to have a small coughing fit and turned away to busy himself with securing the pot of noodles to the range properly. It wasn’t that he had trouble talking about the siege. Half of the _Yuan_ ’s crew were Ba Sing Se veterans, and they couldn’t go more than ten days without some collective half-drunken reminiscing about their most spectacular military campaign. It was a good way to let off steam for those of them who still dreamed of the dust and the heat and the treacherous earth collapsing under their feet, and Jee found the conversations companionable, if not strictly pleasant. All of the men knew what he’d done at Ba Sing Se, and they didn’t care. It had been awkward only in the beginning. 

But no one dared mention their nightmares in the General’s presence, and Jee understood why. The old man’s obvious distress at remembering the siege always made Jee himself feel like his own bad memories of it were somehow inadequate. Not soul-crushing enough, in comparison.

The last few weeks of those unpleasant two years had certainly been the worst time of his life, no doubt about it. Ba Sing Se had cost Jee his honor, his hard-won rank, and his lover of six years, and he’d thought he was finished at the time. But nobody had cared one whit about the regrets of one disgraced and demoted lower officer. He’d been released from military jail and ordered to go make himself useful on Zhao’s ship, and from then on, he’d been too preoccupied with working hard and getting by and complaining, just like all his fellows. None of them had had the time or the energy to wallow in whatever had happened to them.

Maybe the General didn’t really understand how many people had been forced to just _deal_ with the siege, instead of being allowed months or years to go on Spirit World quests and grieve. None of the crew would ever forget Ba Sing Se, Jee least of all; it was why he was here today, in this place, with these people, bound to obey General Iroh for the rest of his life. But it had all settled under the surface, no more than merely the worst of a hundred different old aches in his bones. There was room for other things in his mind now. It had been over a year since he’d last woken up from a real nightmare about the siege.

He wondered if the General would ever manage to get to that point. Maybe not. 

“I do think about Ba Sing Se sometimes, sir. But I prefer not to.”

“That’s good. You shouldn’t dwell there more than you must.” The old man’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Sometimes, Lieutenant, I watch this ship and think that I’ve simple remade the site of my disgrace. Instead of a giant wall to conquer, we have a different goal that we can never hope to truly reach.” His eyes were on Jee, but he seemed to be in a different day and place. “It’s all less frantic, of course, there are no real enemies trying to ambush us. But it’s futile all the same. You are at my side, and so is Master Cook, and good Mechanist Peng, and Chan Haisu, and so many others who stood under the wall… And I brought a different son that I must see off to battle.”

Jee fought the urge to squirm. This was the most the General had ever said about the great siege in the past five years, and Jee couldn’t suppress the cold, bubbling terror that the old man might be about to start talking about what had happened at the end. “Sir, you told me yourself to gather people from Ba Sing Se when you ordered me to find a crew.”

“So I did,” the General murmured.

“But it’s all different now, sir.”

A sigh. “Perhaps my old man’s imagination is getting away from me. Or perhaps we simply won’t fail as catastrophically this time.” He looked back to Jee, and now his mind was definitely in the present. “Lieutenant, you must understand… Zuko didn’t share our experiences under the great wall. But he, too, has been taken to places that he can never really come back from. That he cannot let go because he still hopes to recover the things he lost there.” The General shook his head. “It makes him seem unreasonable sometimes. It _is_ unreasonable. But he’s only human, and a very young human at that. There are a great many things that he doesn’t yet know how to make sense of.”

“…All right, sir,” Jee said.

The General leaned forward a little and peered at Jee as if he was trying to see through his head.

“Does what I’m saying make any sense to you, Lieutenant?”

Jee tried to look smarter and more perceptive than he felt. “Maybe, sir?”

The General smiled, and his hand rose to squeeze Jee’s cotton-clad shoulder for a moment. 

“I am sorry I can’t tell you more. I truly am.”

“Sir… You should probably know if the men don’t know what Prince Zuko did to get banished, they’ll just make up all sorts of things. They already do.”

A nod. “Yes, Lieutenant, I’m quite aware that some among our crew suffer from an excess of imagination. But Zuko asked me not to tell.” The General shot Jee a look of rebuke. “You would not like it if I spread around the story of what you did to lose your topknot, would you?”

Jee fought the urge to hunch his shoulders. “Everybody knows that anyway, sir. It was a public event.” Well, he was almost completely sure Zuko didn’t know. The brat would have mentioned something by now, and besides, who’d tell him?

“Oh, Zuko’s disgrace was quite public as well. The story just hasn’t gone beyond Caldera, for certain reasons.” The lines on the General’s face seemed to deepen again. “Lieutenant, he feels free to approach you _because_ you don’t know what he did. He feels he has a clean slate with you, of sorts. Don’t jeopardize that.”

“All right, sir,” Jee muttered. He despised having things hidden from him. It never ended well.

The third bell of the evening watch watch rang down from the bridge. It sounded like the finest music to Jee’s ears - finally, an excuse to get out of here. He reached for the teapot. 

"I need to go and dress soon, sir. I need to supervise the changing of the watch. More tea, sir?" 

The General looked up, and the desolation on his face was mostly erased by a grateful smile. He extended his cup. "Yes, of course. Thank you."

Jee carefully smiled back and poured. As long as they were still exchanging tea, he knew the General wasn't truly angry with him.

"You know, Lieutenant..." The old man's face softened. He put his free hand on the range behind him and leaned back, as if settling in for a good long anecdote. "When my nephew was little, he wore his hair in a regular topknot. Then the royal tailor mentioned during a fitting that he was a tad small for his age. Prince Zuko immediately demanded to have a high ponytail instead, because that would make him look taller." He broke into a full-throated laugh. "Taller! He was four years old!" 

Jee couldn't help but chuckle along. "I can imagine it, sir."

The General sent him a fond grin. "I've known that boy since the day he was born, Lieutenant. He never thinks he's tall enough, or strong enough, or skilled enough, or fast enough. He wants to grow, more than anything." A warm hand patted Jee's arm. "If you convince him that you wish to help him do that, he will listen to you. It may take him some time to figure out how… I grant, he isn’t good at listening to others. And a little selfish, and much too harsh both with himself and with those around him. But he can learn to do better. And perhaps you might be friends one day."

Or something like it. "Perhaps, sir," Jee conceded.

The General leaned in and lowered his voice. "Let me tell you a small secret about getting along with Prince Zuko. He very, very much enjoys receiving praise. I mean deserved praise, not flattery." 

"I'm not good at flattery, sir." Jee pulled a face.

The General matched it. "Oh, I know that. But perhaps you might want to try offering a genuine word of approval here and there. He'll be delighted, although I doubt it will show."

Right. "I could try, sir. But I doubt that Prince Zuko thinks he needs my approval for anything."

The General smiled. "Maybe he doesn't exactly need it, but I'm quite sure he _wants_ it."

"I'll consider it, sir."

"Excellent!" The General beamed at him. "You and he are both good men. This old war-horse hasn't stopped hoping that you'll manage to learn from each other. Do you remember when I wrote to you that you and Prince Zuko are very much alike?"

Spirits, that first letter. "Yes, sir, of course I remember. It was the most ridiculous thing ever put to paper."

The General laughed so hard he nearly dropped the teapot. 

"Not true!" He held up a finger. "Lieutenant, I wager that if I had an opportunity to speak with your honored mother, she'd tell me that you were exactly like Prince Zuko when you were his age."

"I was _not_. Sir." That was just offensive. "Besides, sir, my mother has no idea what I was like at Prince Zuko's age. She sent me off to the Navy when I was fourteen and told me to lie about how old I was."

"Oh? Why did she do that?"

"Because she was sick of fishing and taking care of children, sir, she wanted to return to her old job in the Home Guard. I was the only one of my siblings who was still in the house. And I was an annoying little cretin. Sir."

The General's voice abruptly dropped to a whisper. His eyes were gleaming merrily. "But in a completely different way than Prince Zuko is, no doubt." Then he leaned over to look past Jee's shoulder. "Hello, Prince Zuko."

Jee fumbled his teacup and very nearly got soaked a second time. 

"Hello, Uncle," Zuko mumbled as he pushed past Jee and the General, making a beeline for the pot of noodles. He looked very rumpled, and sweaty enough that his shirt was clinging rather nicely to his back.

The General chuckled and thumped Jee between the shoulder blades. Jee remembered to breathe.

"Your stealth is much improved, Prince Zuko! The Lieutenant hadn't noticed you coming in at all."

Zuko already had his nose buried in a bowl. His voice came out only barely comprehensible. "Good."

"Eat as much as you can. All these extra training sessions are very taxing for your body," the General lectured as he picked up his tea tray. He ignored the grumble he got in response and took Jee's elbow with his free hand. "Come, Lieutenant, let us leave Prince Zuko to his meal. It’s safer to steal a carcass from a moose lion than to come between a growing boy and his food!"

“I’m not a boy, Uncle!”

The General smiled. “You’re right, Prince Zuko. My apologies. Come, Lieutenant.”

Jee let himself be steered out of the galley and tried to glare the General's topknot on fire. He really, truly hated these people.

* * *

_**Scribbled on the back of a shopping list and stuck between the pages of Lieutenant Jee’s log book** _

_1\. Use praise_  
2\. Mock our mission less often  
3\. (some random dots and lines)  
4\. Sex 

* * *

To Jee's considerable surprise, Zuko did turn up in his cabin later that night. He walked in without knocking just when Jee was finishing up the day's entry in the log book, stood next to the desk with his arms crossed, and glared at Jee as if everything in the world was his fault.

“Good evening, sir,” Jee said as neutrally as he could.

No reply came. The brat obviously hadn’t come to whine about the Avatar or continue their earlier fight, though. He was in his faded red sleeping robes, but without the long dark overcloak that he usually covered them with when stomping around the ship. Two of his visible fingers were twitching nervously. 

If Jee didn’t know any better, he’d have thought the brat was genuinely feeling awkward trying this only hours after he’d chucked a bowl of food at Jee’s head.

For one moment, Jee wanted to tell him to get his rude self the hell out and go throw noodles at the fish or something. Then he remembered to practice his new trick. He stared hard at Zuko's stiff posture and began to mentally strip away the sleeping robe's vest. If he tugged it aside, it would part to reveal a smooth, hard chest, then pale nipples, before the collar stretched taut across those broad shoulders. He could leave the vest there and run his fingers along the edge of Zuko’s chest, over the barely-there swell of each rib and down to his hard stomach. The brat had the sort of abdomen that only fast-burning firebenders could even dream of, and then only if they devoted absolutely insane amounts of time to their training. Jee could picture all the curving ridges of muscle, as clearly as if they were in plain sight instead of hidden under the shapeless robe; he’d gotten ample time to admire them from up close when the brat had lain there on the hay, catching his breath. The loose sleeping pants were held up only by a single string tied in a neat little sparrow-gull knot. It would take no more than a brief tug at one end of it to make the fabric slide down Zuko’s narrow hips, along long thighs that were probably mottled with faint red marks where Jee’s fingers had dug in yesterday. Or maybe he was half hard already, and the red cotton would catch on his cock for a moment before falling down…

Jee had to concentrate rather hard to keep from licking his lips. It was nothing he hadn’t seen dozens of times before, of course, but the communal showers were hardly a place where one could take one’s time memorizing the look of other people’s privates in exquisite detail. And Jee had become aware only very recently how engrossing it could be to stare at Zuko. He’d definitely pay more attention the next time they happened to be washing together.

He could leave the brat like that, nearly naked with his arms and legs caught in his clothes. Put a hand on his chest and push him back over the desk and…

Jee swallowed and shook himself out of that reverie, back to the half-darkness of his cabin and Zuko’s impatient scowl above a fully-clothed body. Well. That had helped a lot, actually. Jee now felt vastly less annoyed and more clear-headed. Obviously, what he had here was a choice between holding a minor grudge and enjoying an evening with his own right hand, or practicing forgiveness and being rewarded with naked prince. 

The General had even told him to be more forgiving. He really had to keep in mind that General Iroh was almost always right about everything.

Jee cleaned the ink off his writing brush, taking extra care to smoothen out the hairs and bend them dry with a heat so gentle that it wouldn't clash with the chilly air and make the brush brittle. He closed the log book and put it safely on the floor. The rack of brushes, inkstone, candle, and ink sticks joined it, as well as the few bits of armor that he hadn’t bothered to stow in his clothes chest yet. He put his mug of water safely behind one leg of the desk, but within easy reach; he was probably going to need a drink at some point.

When the desk’s surface was completely bare, Jee pushed his creaking chair back a little and patted the wood.

"Have a seat, sir."

Zuko's ugly frown softened. He stepped in front of Jee and settled on the edge of the desk without a word. 

When Jee scooted his chair closer again, Zuko spread his legs to make room and put one slipper-clad foot on the chair's right arm rest. Even with the loose sleeping pants, the wide stretch made it immediately, beautifully obvious that he'd come with no loincloth on, just like he'd been told. Good boy. 

Jee let his eyes travel from Zuko’s groin, past his knee and to his exposed calf, along sharp folds of cotton that stretched not _quite_ as tightly around the circumference of his thigh as that training tunic he’d been wearing on his birthday had stretched over his chest. The hem of the pants barely reached a hand’s length below his knee before giving way to a well-muscled calf and then a long foot.

“Aren’t you cold without boots, sir?”

Zuko shook his head. “Breath of fire.”

It was true. Jee could feel the brat’s chi working, pulsing slow and steady with his every breath. It was a little like a miniature ship’s boiler. The thrum of the machinery in the hold couldn’t be heard all the way up in the tower unless Jee was lying still in his bed, but he imagined he could feel the floor vibrate under his feet in time with Zuko’s breathing.

“You’ll wear yourself out if you keep bending all the time, sir,” Jee murmured as he traced the edge of the open slipper with one finger, drawing a long oval around the exposed arch of Zuko’s foot. In the glow of the candle on the floor, the pale cotton looked to be exactly the same color as smooth, hot skin of the foot it was so snugly wrapped around. It felt like the brat had stepped right out of a warm bath.

Zuko huffed. “I’m not going to wear myself out.”

All right, then. If Prince Zuko said the normal rules of bending and energy use didn’t apply to him, surely the only option was to agree. Jee shrugged and slid his hand up, watching intently as the tips of his fingers disappeared under the hem of Zuko’s pants.

“You should have gotten yourself new sleeping robes in Nan Seng, sir,” Jee said. He let his hand drop again and began to circle the bony ankle with his thumb. “These are too short. And your slippers look tight. You’ve grown.”

Zuko seemed torn between closing his eyes and staring at Jee’s hand. His eyelids - eyelid - kept dropping and then snapping open again.

“Couldn’t afford it,” he said. “I already had to get new training clothes.”

Jee raised an eyebrow, but kept his gaze firmly on the white skin under his own weather- and flame-roughened fingers. “I wasn’t aware training tunics were so expensive these days, sir.”

There was no reply. When the pad of Jee’s thumb moved over the delicate skin behind the ankle and pressed firmly on the long tendon at the back, Zuko’s foot arched up until only his toes were still on the arm rest of the chair. 

Jee held him like that until the trembling of muscles under his hand became noticeable. Then he pushed the foot down again until it was resting flat on the wood. 

“Right,” he murmured. When he looked up, the gold of Zuko’s eyes had been swallowed almost entirely by black. There was a wet gleam on his lips, as if he’d been running his tongue along them only moments ago. “Shall we get on with it then, sir?”

“Yeah.” Zuko’s hoarse voice had gone soft and a little breathless. He didn’t seem to be any good at whispering, at all; it was as if he was incapable of simply speaking more softly, instead of swallowing every word so that it was almost inaudible.

Jee shifted forward on his chair and reached out to untie the worn laces of the vest. It was barely more than a simple workman’s tunic with a bit of padding for winter use, with two halves folded over each other across the chest and secured with only an inner set of ties on one side and an outer set on the other. Jee tugged the outer ties apart, folded back the freed half of the vest, and reached for the inner ties resting just above Zuko’s left hipbone.

His hand paused just over the knot.

The vest’s remaining half bisected Zuko’s torso into one white and one pale red half, the hem cutting diagonally from the right side of his neck all the way down to the ties on the left. Jee followed the contours of the rough triangle of exposed skin with his eyes - the endless, straight line sloping downward. The slight dip of Zuko’s waist and the slope of his ribcage above it. The almost perfectly straight line of his collarbones at the top, from one half-naked shoulder to the very top of the hemline on the other side, about to start its long plunge down.

Well. That view was definitely too pretty to ruin. After a moment of consideration, Jee just gathered up the edges of the vest’s remaining half and tucked them under Zuko’s waistband to keep them out of the way. That would do just fine. All he needed was no more than one layer between his face and what was now definitely the outline of a rather attractive erection pushing against the fabric. There was no need to undress the brat completely - chilly night, and all that.

“We have to keep quiet, sir,” he whispered. “It’s late, but people on watch might be using the stairs outside to go up to the bridge.”

“I _said_ we should do this in the rhino hold.” Zuko’s voice was edging towards churlish.

“Yes, sir,” Jee agreed amiably. He took hold of Zuko’s left knee, firmly pushed the leg to the side to make room for his shoulders, and reached for the bulge in Zuko’s sleeping pants. He didn’t bother with teasing, but immediately folded his hand around the warm shape of it and gave an experimental squeeze. 

Zuko exhaled, a long, soft sigh of relief. 

The sound morphed into a silent trembling under Jee’s fingers as they explored, caressing, hugging, cupping every inch of firming flesh they touched. There hadn’t been much opportunity to cop a good feel yesterday, and he was determined to make up for that.

Use praise to get along with him, the Ge… someone had said. Jee didn’t think he was much better at real praise than he was at flattery, but he could definitely manage utterly sincere compliments.

“You’re a handsome lad, sir. Well-formed,” he murmured as he traced the shape of the cock before him over the thin barrier of cotton.

A rather pleased glint appeared in Zuko’s eyes. “Is that so, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir. Very shapely. And an excellent girth.” Jee smiled and closed his fingers a little more tightly, knowing it would make the cotton stretch tight against the globes below.

Zuko’s whole body seemed to curl into the pressure, slight as it was; he hunched forward until his chin was almost resting on his chest, bending his head far enough that the ponytail slipped forward, the ends of it just brushing Jee’s upturned forehead. It was a fairly impressive bit of athletics. If the brat were just a little more limber, he could have sucked himself. Jee had known a fellow Navy recruit who could do that, once, a long time ago. He’d never been more envious of anyone or anything in his life.

Not that he had much to complain about right now. This was turning out very nicely. Jee was quite old enough to be able to take his pleasure for a long time just from watching, and there were a great deal of interesting things to watch right now. Like the weird, almost goofy smile that had blossomed on the brat’s face. He looked as delighted as Cook in front of a candy stall. 

“Really?”

“Take my word for it, sir. I know what I’m talking about.” Jee adjusted his grip on the warm length, holding it much like he would the ship’s wheel, relaxed but still firmly.

Zuko hummed. [He was still smiling](http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/119/d/7/people_in_the_mirror__chapter_8___zuko_smiling_by_fanficforensics-d4y0qws.jpg). If he kept this up, he’d get a cramp in his face from overusing those long-neglected muscles. 

“But I heard pikeman Lin Wei and pikeman Niu say it doesn’t matter a thing how big you are. Just what you can do with it,” he breathed.

Oh, that was rich. Jee let his smile curve into a grin that was just this side of genuinely mean. “Next time you’re in the showers with either of them, sir, take a peek. You’ll notice they have a reason for clinging to that minority opinion.”

Zuko made a sound somewhere between a snort and a chuckle. “Oh. I see.”

“It matters,” Jee murmured. He gave the cloth-covered length another firm, loving caress, from the top all the way down. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. If you’re in a position to brag, then brag, sir.” 

Now he definitely got a chuckle. The foot on the arm rest of Jee’s chair was bobbing a little, as if it wanted to bounce from sheer giddy gratification but thought that might be undignified. 

Jee scooted forward a bit further on his chair so he could wedge one shoulder under the raised leg and the other against Zuko’s right thigh. Now, this was a comfortable fit. Just right. “Well, sir. Now that we’ve established that…”

Something tugged at the back of Jee’s mind. He stopped and frowned up at Zuko’s face, bathed in soft light and shadow from the candle flame below. 

“Why were you talking about cock sizes with the pikemen?”

“I wasn’t. It was mostly about the rhinos.” Zuko shrugged at Jee’s no doubt quite nonplussed expression and straightened up a little. “Pikeman Lin Wei and pikeman Niu’s rhinos are bulls. They fight over pikeman Shi’s rhino every time she’s in heat. Then we have to keep them all apart, and everybody starts arguing about… sex. And things.” He looked a little pained. “Like when we’re out practicing maneuvers with the rhinos. It’s annoying, we barely get any work done sometimes.”

Ah, yes. Jee remembered Haisu mentioning some sort of seasonal fighting cycle among the pikemen. He’d never bothered to distinguish it from their usual clowning around. 

It was all in good fun, no doubt, but still. Zuko hadn’t been of age until less than two days ago. Jee made an effort to maintain his stern frown. 

“Sir. Did the pikemen talk about those things in your presence?”

Zuko made a face that he probably thought was the picture of innocence. “Sometimes they forget I’m there if I don’t say anything for a while.”

Jee sighed. He had to admit, it was very likely that Zuko might escape notice if he shut up; silence was such a rare thing when he was around that the absence of snarling and shouting could easily be mistaken for the absence of Prince Zuko. And it didn’t sound like the brat’s tender young mind had been harmed by being subjected to talk about rhino endowments. There wouldn’t be much point in trying to dole out punishment for this one. 

“Don’t the beasts fight over your own rhino? Sir.”

Another shrug. “Mai’s only four. Rhinos don’t start calving until they’re about six, so the others still treat her like she’s little. And she bites.”

Jee could imagine, although he didn’t like the implication that the murderous beast might get even bigger and more lethal over the next couple of years. Or that she might spawn. “Why don’t we just get four lady rhinos?”

“You mean cows,” Zuko said, a touch of disdain in his voice. “We should have, but pikeman Shi says these four were the only ones he could get on short notice when we had to leave. And now we can’t exchange them because nobody wants bulls. They just make trouble.” He frowned a little. “Besides, pikeman Lin Wei and pikeman Niu like the rhinos they have now.”

“They also like dice and getting sloshed,” Jee huffed. “They’re men under your command, sir. If you tell them to get used to different rhinos, they have to grin and bear it.” And wasn’t he familiar with that.

The curl of Zuko’s lone eyebrow turned very distinctly unhappy. “I’d hate it if someone took away my rhino. And I just told you, nobody wants to exchange cows for bulls.”

Jee opened his mouth to reply, then stopped and stared as it dawned on him what he’d just heard. Was the brat actually trying to put himself in other people’s shoes? And succeeding? Jee felt a vague urge to run to the General and report that Prince Zuko had just grasped the concept of empathy. The old man might throw them all another party.

“We could sell them for the meat and spend the money on cows, sir.” At least komodo sausage was good for something.

The thought of sausage and the filthy glare on Zuko’s face combined to alert Jee that they were rather veering off track here. 

“Lieutenant, we are _not_ killing the rhinos!”

“Joking, sir,” Jee sussed. He filed away the apparent existence of a hidden rhino subculture on his own ship for later consideration and patted Zuko’s thigh. “Here, here, pay attention now…”

Jee leaned in until his ears were brushing the inside of Zuko’s thighs and he was close enough to kiss the warm bulge under his hand, pulled the cotton tight over it with his fingers, and breathed air that was _just_ not flame.

The sharp hitch of Zuko’s shocked inhale was more a quick tug at Jee’s chi than an actual sound; the _puff_ of the candle flame going out was perfectly audible above it.

Jee looked up in the sudden darkness, wondering if that had been an accident or the result of a sudden attack of bashfulness. The brat hadn’t seemed to care one bit about being on display in the torchlight of the rhino hold…

“Sir, can you give me a light here?”

“What for?” Zuko looked perfectly still and controlled, face smooth in the gentle light, but the thigh slung over Jee’s shoulder was trembling. There was a faint echo of a heartbeat in it, pulsing in time with the throb of chi-saturated blood in the warm flesh under Jee’s right hand. It was as simple and eloquent as the cadence of a drum.

_Want. Want. Want. Want._

“Because I like to see what I’m doing, sir.” Jee watched Zuko’s eyes widen a little and smiled. “And you’ll hold out longer if you have something else to concentrate on.”

“Oh.”

Zuko lifted one hand off the desk and raised it halfway between himself and Jee. When he opened his fingers, an apple-sized ball of flame bloomed between them. The glow of it cast soft, feathery shadows over and along Jee’s fingers and the handful they were cupping. When Jee flexed his hand, the shadows flowed in and out of focus as the flame dimmed along with Zuko’s breaths.

Jee kept on kneading, willing his own fire to burn low and harmonize with the sharper flame that throbbed so tantalizingly close. It wasn’t hard; the brat’s chi was as open wide as his face was closed, grasping and pushing and pulling at Jee’s with every exhale and inhale. The pulsing light in his palm was a rather handy guide to the rhythm, too.

Jee watched as the sphere of fire waxed and waned, intrigued. That was neater bending than he was used to from Zuko. The brat was usually too wound up and erratic to manage this much control. Jee tried to recall how many candles he’d seen on Zuko’s altar earlier that evening. Three at least...

“How many candles can you meditate with, sir?”

“I…” Zuko blinked a few times, as if he’d been prodded out of a daydream. “I just got up to four.” He sounded proud. With reason, Jee supposed; most adult benders never got past three. He’d been well into his twenties himself by the time he could control four separate cores of fire properly. There were people who could make one fireball as big as a barrel, but never learned how to control even just two tiny candle flames simultaneously.

“That’s not bad, sir.”

Zuko frowned a little. “It’s only half as much as my… It’s not good enough, but I’ll get better. Uncle says I can do better.”

“I’m sure you can, sir.” Jee considered small sphere of flame curling in on itself in Zuko’s palm. “Make four.”

Zuko stared at him for a moment. Then he exhaled, long and deliberately, and the fire shrunk into nothing as darkness seemed to close in on it. A bright burst of heat slid along Jee’s chi a second before four smaller tongues of flame bloomed on the tips of Zuko’s fingers. They were less steady than the handful of fire had been, but after a few more breaths, their erratic flickering eased until they were barely trembling at all.

“Good,” Jee murmured. “Don’t let any of them go out, sir.” He ignored Zuko’s puzzled frown and leaned in again, mouth already open.

The flames leapt up to three times their height before he’d even started. Jee paused to look up at Zuko’s strained face, raising an eyebrow in silent rebuke.

“I can’t keep them steady if you’re doing _that_ ,” Zuko complained.

Jee closed his mouth for a moment; his tongue had been getting uncomfortably dry. “Yes you can, sir. Just keep your breathing under control. I’ll go slow so you can adjust. No surprises.”

Shadows passed over Zuko’s eyes as he dropped his gaze from the flames on his fingertips to Jee’s face. 

“Will you stop if I lose them?” 

There was a queer tightness in his voice, a tinge of anticipation, but not the good kind. He sounded like he actually thought Jee might send him out of the room shamed and unfulfilled if he didn’t manage to complete this task.

Jee frowned. “No,” he whispered. 

He leaned forward until the heat from the little flames was almost close enough to singe his forehead, then [pressed a kiss against the back of Zuko’s curled fingers](http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/119/4/2/people_in_the_mirror__chapter_8___no_pressure_by_fanficforensics-d4y0qzk.jpg). “It’s just a little game, sir. Just a trick to help you keep your flame and your breathing under control.” The chap on his lips rasped over soft, dry skin as he moved from knuckle to knuckle. “No consequences if it doesn’t work. We talked about this, sir. If you lose control, just breathe fire _away_ from me.”

The frown lines between Zuko’s brows, such as they were, softened visibly.

“Okay. I’ll try it.” Zuko’s body shifted a little as he seemed to settle on the desk, balancing on just one hand stretched out behind him. When he was done, the weight of his leg on Jee’s shoulder felt heavier and much more relaxed. It was almost cozy.

Jee had no trouble at all conjuring up a genuine smile before he licked his lips and leaned in again. “Concentrate now, sir. Breathe. And stay quiet.”

Zuko’s mouth opened about a second before he actually said anything. 

“Right. I… _Oooh._ ”

Jee hugged Zuko’s waist with one arm, keeping him close as he set to licking in earnest. With his shoulder keeping Zuko’s leg pinned more or less in place, it was just enough to keep the kid from moving his hips so much that the squirming got in the way.

Zuko smelled fresh and clean, with no more than a whiff of the accumulated sweat and grime of a long day of training and princing around. Jee hummed and pushed his nose forward, inhaling the almost obscenely soft scent of jasmine soap. Cook had started making the stuff for everyone on board after the General complained that the smell of the standard military ash-and-fat soap interfered with the aromas of his teas. He even had them wash the decks with the herbal concoction, and Jee lived in dread of the day Zhao dropped by again and stayed on board long enough to realize that Jee’s ship smelled of pretty little flowers. He’d never live it down.

The brat had washed right before he came up here, though. That was… amazingly considerate. Jee hadn’t even asked him to. Perhaps it was just royal fastidiousness. Or maybe Zuko was also trying to do this _right_ in whatever way he could. Maybe.

Jee laved the cotton with wet, generous kisses until it clung to the skin below, then closed his fingers over the hard length again and began to pump, firm and steady.

A strangled whine sounded from above. Jee looked up at Zuko’s flushed face, not breaking the rhythm. He deliberately took a few long seconds to close his mouth properly before smiling.

“Does this chafe, sir?”

Zuko’s good eye had gone so wide it looked in danger of falling out of his face.

“No! It’s fine!”

There was more than a hint of a squeak in his voice. Jee was glad he was already smiling, otherwise he might have betrayed exactly how funny that sounded.

“All right,” he murmured. “Tell me if it does, sir.” Not that he expected it to. The cotton was no silk, but it was old and soft, hardly likely to hurt no matter how damp it got. And it wouldn’t stay wet for long. Even firebenders who couldn’t do the breath of fire to save their lives usually warmed up enough when aroused to evaporate any moisture from their own clothes, and Zuko was giving off enough heat to dry a room full of laundry right now. 

It was controlled heat, though; wild fire was flickering only at the edges of it, no more than an outer layer over a firm core of chi that swirled and thrummed like a dozen small heartbeats pulsing in steady concert. _Much_ better than yesterday. Strong, too. The brat definitely hadn’t been able to marshal this much fire with this sort of casual ease the last time Jee had trained with him. That was a long time ago, though. It seemed like the General’s teachings on stillness and control were finally sinking in. Good.

Zuko’s breathing was turning harsh, small whimpers escaping him every time Jee twisted his hand to draw cotton over skin. Jee shifted a little closer so he could put his mouth to work again and earn more of those. 

When he nipped, much harder than he could have afforded to if the protective barrier of fabric hadn’t been there, Zuko’s hips tried to jump under his hands. Jee pushed them down harder, digging his thumbs into the tender hollows of the hipbones.

“Shhh…” 

He breathed around the length, deep and hard, making sure the fire pressing down on his own groin went mostly elsewhere. No point in getting himself overly excited while he still had a job to focus on.

Zuko shook, then almost lurched to the side for a moment. His hand slapped onto the wood of the desk several times, quickly and erratically, as if he’d started to raise it but forgotten that he needed it for balance.

“All right, sir?” Jee didn’t bother to look up this time. He liked his face where it was, thank you very much.

“I…” A gulp. “I want to do something too.”

Jee grinned against the cotton and took another rather hard nip.

“In a minute,” he hummed over the resulting groan. “In a minute, all in good time.”

The leg slung over his shoulder shifted, tightened, and pulled him in closer. The rush of fire through the chi paths in it was hot and almost audible against Jee’s ear, like high summer wind.

He briefly drew back to blow a path of kisses from the Zuko’s knee back to his groin, enjoying the way Zuko gasped every time his fire writhed under his skin as it tried to get at Jee’s. The brat must have no idea how useless it was to try and keep his face blank when his fire was such an open book, with all the hunger and want and eagerness plain to see for anyone who knew how to read.

Jee made a mental note that they should have a little talk about this. Not that he minded it, of course, but advertising your inexperience and need like this wasn’t a harmless thing to do in the presence of just any firebending master. _You’re lucky I got to you first, princeling._

He was here _first_. The brat had never made these sounds for anyone else. 

And one day soon, he’d be the first to turn Zuko over right here on this desk, push some clothes between those easily-bruised hipbones and the hard edge of the wood, and tell him to hold on to the far edge and keep his breathing steady and stay quiet, _quiet, Sir_ , while Jee fucked him. He’d make it good, so good that the brat would beg and _beg_ for more.

Heat curled low in Jee’s stomach. He shoved it forward, thrusting, and a hard shudder went trough Zuko at the pressure. The glow of the fire in his hand brightened and darkened rapidly through Jee’s eyelids. 

The little flames were going from sputtering to blazing and back again in furious succession, but they stayed _there_ , clear and sound; Jee could feel the four separate, living points of chi pressing against his own fire the whole time, through every lick and every squeeze that made the brat moan like he was falling apart.

 _Good boy, good boy, you try so hard._ Jee hummed in approval as he left all the work to his mouth and freed both hands to caress up and down Zuko’s long thighs, hipbones to knees and back again. He let his short nails rasp over the fabric as hard as he could, pressing thin, hard lines into the trembling muscles below until he could dig his fingers into Zuko’s rear. 

The moans jumped up an octave and stayed there. They never really seemed to go away, picking up again as soon as they’d almost died out, every time, perfectly in sync with the throbbing of the fire. Excellent. Now _that_ was the sort of breath control they’d been talking about.

“Good,” Jee whispered. “Very good. You’re doing wonderful, you can have a reward, hold on now…” 

He drew away for just a moment to grope down almost blindly for his mug of water. It had been half empty anyhow, and he downed most of it in a few messy gulps, spilling almost as much water down his front as went into his parched mouth and throat. No matter, it would dry in seconds.

“Lieutenant, what… Come back!” 

It was halfway between a sob and a groan, and almost, _almost_ close to pleading.

“Shhhh, hold on,” Jee repeated. He kept the last swallow of water in his mouth and dropped the mug before leaning in again, nudging ahead with his own fire, testing. Had to make sure the brat’s skin was warm enough for this little trick to pleasure rather than hurt. Oh yes, no problem at all, they might as well lock Zuko in the furnace and stop wasting all that coal for the boilers every day.

Jee tilted his head, wrapped his lips over as much of Zuko’s cock as he could take in, and _breathed_. The water in the back of his mouth evaporated with an explosive hiss.

Zuko’s whole body jerked as if hit by lightning. He _wailed_ , so long and loud that Jee almost jumped up in shock.

“Shhhh!” He tried to speak and gulp in some much-needed air at the same time. It made him swallow his words a couple of times before he got something intelligible out. “Shhhh, quiet, you have to be quiet!”

The hand that wasn’t occupied with holding the flames - he was still holding them, merciful spirits - pounded against the desk, over and over.

“Finish,” Zuko exhaled along with every very, very un-quiet bang of his fist hitting the wood. “Finish, finish, _finish_!”

Jee glared and pinched one heaving side with two fingers. “I told you not to give me orders.”

Zuko stared down at him, lopsided eyes open as wide as they would go.

“ _Finish_ ,” he insisted. It was like he just couldn’t fathom why his usual way of making things happen wasn’t working. The little flames on his fingertips were reaching for Jee’s chi, prodding then here and then there, confused.

The brat looked and sounded so perfectly lost that for a moment, Jee felt like _he_ was the one acting like a bully here.

“All right, all right,” he huffed. He went back to licking and sucking, and soon the happy moaning started up again. Not as loud as before, though. Good.

Then Jee had had enough of munching cotton and tore at Zuko’s drawstring to get himself a taste of real skin, and he had no earthly idea why that should come as a surprising development to _anyone_ in this room, but apparently it did. Zuko’s four little fires exploded into a ball of flame the size of a good melon.

“I’m sor…”

“Quiet!” Jee gave him a hard slap on the thigh as he pulled the cloth out of the way - _There you are, aren’t you a handsome one, and all mine_.

Zuko’s hips jumped up at the slap, then higher the moment Jee’s lips touched hot, damp skin, and Jee took advantage to grab hold of his rear with both hands and jerk the brat forward into his mouth.

Zuko didn’t wail again; his fire _stopped_ , for just a moment, and then he was slamming his still-burning hand on the desk and using the extra leverage to lift his hips up as far as he could. The foot that wasn’t firmly planted onto the chair knocked against Jee’s ribs as it grappled for purchase, briefly, before finding the other arm rest so Zuko could grind himself upwards even harder.

“Aaah!”, he sobbed when Jee just held on for a moment, adjusting to the familiar-new weight and shape in his mouth. “Please! Please, suck me suck me suck me _please_ …”

The words went to Jee’s groin faster than any arousing sight or touch ever could have. Oh _fuck_ yes, that was it. He could sit here and listen to that until he starved right in this chair, and he’d die with a smile on his face.

He didn’t bother to reply, just hollowed his cheeks around the throbbing heat in his mouth and began to move, as fast as he could manage. It was a graceless performance, Jee knew, not up at all to his usual standards, with no tongue at all and so hard it almost had to hurt. But the brat didn’t know the difference, and he didn’t sound like he cared. Zuko was gasping, breath hard and hoarse, hips thrusting up in something that was as far from a proper rhythm as he could possibly get.

Jee let him push. The wild enthusiasm was rather flattering, even if he had to rise out of his chair awkwardly to keep his head at enough of a distance that Zuko couldn’t make him gag no matter how high he managed to arch his offensively youthful back. 

The uncomfortable position would only be for a moment, anyway. These acrobatics were ending right now. Zuko had had his fun, and it was Jee’s turn now. He had to get out of his clothes and get… _something_ , hands on him, a mouth, it didn’t matter, as long as it happened soon.

One hard suck, two, and Zuko’s body snapped taut as a bowstring. His thighs shook against either side of Jee’s chest as chi shot from his limbs to his stomach, so fast that Jee imagined he could hear the rush of it over the pounding of Zuko’s blood and the hissing keening that was coming from where the brat’s head had to be. He’d bent over backwards so far that Jee couldn’t see more than the edge of a chin over the broad expanse of his pale chest.

Jee pulled away and quickly replaced his mouth with his fingers before Zuko could notice the loss of pressure. He wanted to look his fill this time, now that he wasn’t too distracted with redirecting fireballs to pay close attention. His eyes hadn’t quite adjusted to the new darkness of the cabin yet, though; he felt more than saw warmth splattering his hand, and could barely make out the long line of Zuko’s torso as it sharpened into the sort of taut, elegant, absolutely perfect curve that Jee had only ever seen on lads in illustrated spring scrolls.

The brat was going to be a _beautiful_ young man, damn him. Such a shame about the face, and the personality, but it wasn’t like Jee was in a position to cast stones about either of those things. Nobody was perfect.

One last twitch and gasp, and then Zuko half sank, half fell back onto the desk as his arms buckled under him. Jee was on him almost before he’d really hit the wood, covering Zuko’s mouth with his own in a hard, sloppy kiss. 

There was a loud clatter behind them. The chair? Either Jee had shoved it or Zuko had kicked it over. Didn’t matter. Jee really couldn’t care less if someone heard the noise and came to investigate. The whole damn ship was perfectly welcome to come see him pin their squirming commander onto his desk and crush his mouth over those thin lips and inhale every burning, gasping breath.

Oh, that tasted good - warm, lazy, well-satisfied fire, so thick it slid over the tongue like hot syrup. Jee curved both hands over the back of the shaved skull to protect it from the hard surface of the desk as he pushed _down_ , grinding himself into Zuko’s shaking body while he plundered the brat’s mouth for every last bit of that tart aftertaste.

[Zuko moaned into the kiss.](http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/119/f/2/people_in_the_mirror__chapter_8___kiss_by_fanficforensics-d4y0r2i.jpg) He grabbed at Jee’s head with both hands and drew his legs up again, thighs sliding along Jee’s sides until he managed to hook his ankles one over the other. 

His heel was digging into the exact same place in Jee’s lower back than yesterday. It hurt, badly, much worse than Jee would have expected, but he really couldn’t care less when the new position let him crush his own hard length against Zuko’s jerking hips.

“That was well done, sir,” he mumbled in between kisses. “Well done. _Well_ done.”

The hands on the sides of Jee’s head tightened and forced him back a little. There was a patch of glowing red high on Zuko’s good cheek, and his eyes seemed to be wavering between his customary determination and an odd sort of half-panic.

“I won’t drop the flames next time,” he panted. “It was an accident…”

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Jee murmured. He dove in for another kiss as he spread one hand over Zuko’s scalp. The skin was slick with sweat, and it felt much less rough than yesterday. Jee’s fingers slid over it as if caressing well-polished armor.

The brat had shaved sometime in between last night and now. Perhaps even right before he came here; there was a faint, grassy scent clinging to his head, very much like Jee’s own shaving oil. He’d gone to shower after his training session, and then he’d passed by his own cabin and taken the time to smoothen the skin he knew Jee was going to touch.

The thought of Zuko putting in that much deliberate preparation for this - for _him_ \- made Jee’s cock twitch.

He dug his pelvis harder into the cradle of Zuko’s hips to make sure the brat could feel it. It earned him a tiny, strangled whimper.

“Well done,” he repeated. 

Zuko’s lips moved against his cheek, upwards, briefly, as if he was smiling. 

The fingers in Jee’s hair disappeared. The press of them returned against his waist, where they rested for only a moment before trying to burrow in between their bodies towards where Jee’s erection was still pushing into both their stomachs. 

It didn’t work. Zuko growled, low and annoyed, as his fingers tried dig in.

“Let me touch you. _Let_ me, I want to!”

Jee sighed as all the fire in his blood seemed to coalesce in his belly. It made his arms and legs feel as weak as bunches of noodles, but he really didn’t care. _Agni, thank you._

“Yes, sir. Would you mind moving to the bed? It’s more comfortable.” The ache in his back muscles was turning into a steady, uncomfortable whine of pain. He should probably lie down before that little stunt in the rhino hold came to bite him after all.

The probing fingers finally gave up and tightened in the back of Jee’s tunic. “Okay.”

“Hold fast.” Jee hooked one arm around Zuko’s middle and began to lift him off the desk. 

At least, that was his intention; before he’d managed to right himself even halfway, a cold-hot spike of what felt like pure ice slammed into his kidneys. It ripped up his back and made him drop Zuko back onto the wood before he could even consider holding on.

“Ow! What are you…”

Jee tuned him out; he slammed his fist onto the table and grit his teeth hard enough to make them crack, trying to keep in the scream trying to force its way up his throat. He couldn’t hear a thing over the grinding of his teeth and his own panting.

Through the haze of pain, he barely registered the touch of a hand on his shoulder, then on the back of his neck, then on his shoulder again, quick and nervous.

“What? Lieutenant! What is it?” 

“Back,” Jee grunted. With a gasp of effort, he managed to push away from the desk without doubling over or falling over his chair and _really_ breaking something. He began to edge backwards to his bunk. The agony tearing along his spine felt like bad, rotten fire, all burn but no warmth.

Zuko was sitting up on the desk now. With his vest half hanging off his shoulders and the front of his pants gaping open, he made a picture that Jee might have killed to see in any other moment but this one. 

“What? I didn’t do anything!”

Jee held up his hand. “No, sir, it’s…” He had to clamp his teeth together on a hiss. “Just a moment!” _Please don’t go anywhere._

Finally, finally, the back of Jee’s thighs hit the hard edge of his bunk. He lowered himself on the mattress with a pained groan, put both hands flat against his lower back, and began to push waves of soothing heat into his abused muscles while digging in hard with his fingertips. Up and down, up and down. He’d had to do this before. Plenty of times; he’d been very fond of spectacular firebending gymnastics in his youth, and all that leaping and twisting was costing him dearly in his middle years. But this sort of pain was usually as easy to quell as it was fierce. Just a little more good heat, and he’d be right as rain…

For a few long moments, Jee was afraid that fate would make _now_ the first time that he couldn’t fix his own spine, and he’d have to admit that he was too creaky and old to accept a willingly offered hand job from a handsome boy with barely any clothes on. Maybe he’d even be forced to ask the brat to fetch Haisu, or one of the other handful of people on board who knew how to pound a rebellious back into submission. And if he had to stoop to that… He might as well beg forgiveness, counsel Zuko to find himself another teacher, and join old Peng and Cook in the engine room to drown his shame in paint stripper.

Then the knots of pain began to dissolve under the heat of his hands, and Jee exhaled a moan of relief. 

He stayed like that for a few more moments, head between his hands and eyes screwed shut, before he dared to try and lie down on the bed properly. The dull flashes of residual pain made him grimace. Blindly, he groped for his thin pillow and pushed it under his lower back.

“What are you doing?” 

The voice came from so close that Jee almost jumped up and twisted his back right into tangled agony again. 

He opened his eyes. Somehow, Zuko had moved from on top of the desk to right beside the bed without making a single sound. He’d tied his pants, but not his tunic.

“Thank you for your concern. Sir,” Jee muttered. “My back’s giving me trouble.” This sort of thing hadn’t happened the last time he’d tried to lift another man. He felt a faint twinge of jealousy at the easy nonchalance with which Zuko could stand there, absolutely comfortable, as if he hadn’t spent half of last night pressed against a door and a good part of this evening bent back over a hard desk.

Zuko stared down at him, but a little to the side instead of straight in Jee’s eyes like he usually did. His face was completely blank.

“What did I do wrong?”

Jee blinked and took a closer look at the brat. The pose he’d mistaken for a relaxed slouch was anything but; Zuko was almost hunching over, shoulders high, arms pressed against his sides instead of crossed firmly in front of him. It was a look Jee had seen a thousand times before, on misbehaving crewmen who knew they were due for something much worse than the latrines roster and were about two seconds away from clapping their hands together and begging for mercy. 

Jee was absolutely sure he’d _never_ seen Zuko try to look apologetic, though. He frowned. His mind was probably playing tricks on him; it was dark in here. 

“Nothing, sir,” he murmured. “It wasn’t you. This just happens sometimes. I’m just not as young as you are.” 

“Oh.” Zuko straightened a little. He still looked uncharacteristically hesitant.

Jee held out his hand to where Zuko’s was hanging next to his hip. “I feel better already, sir. Come here.”

Zuko ignored the hand, but he did lower himself onto the edge of the bunk. For a few moments, he just sat there, staring away at the desk as if deep in thought. The scarred side of his face was turned towards Jee. Jee wished he wouldn’t do that. It made him look rough and unsightly, not at all like a boy with silk-smooth skin and warm thighs and warmer kisses. And the burned eye was barely recognizable as an eye without its healthy counterpart also in view, a harsh slit of gold with no expression of its own.

Jee tried to take Zuko’s arm and pull him down beside him, make him turn, but the brat had clearly had enough delays. He dodged the grasping hand and reached out until his fingers were only inches away from the tented cloth that covered Jee’s cock, which was quickly regaining interest in the proceedings.

“Can I…”

His palm was so close that the heat of it made the tendrils of chi under Jee’s skin shiver in yearning, hard enough to make his flesh twitch again. Jee sucked in a surprised breath, and another as his mouth seemed to go dry all at once at the memory of how _hard_ those strong white fingers now hovering over his cock had clutched at his shoulders. It had been too long since he’d had another’s hands on him.

“Go ahead, sir,” he whispered.

A puzzled frown appeared on Zuko’s face. “Aren’t you going to give me a bunch of instructions?” 

It was clearly meant to sound annoyed, but there was a definite note of uncertainty in there. Jee shook his head and reached out to give Zuko’s knee a reassuring squeeze. 

“Just show me what you like to do to yourself, sir.”

The lone eyebrow shot up. “Why?”

“Because I want to know what you like.” And because it would help Jee figure out on what points the kid’s technique needed improvement. Also, being able to show off with something he was already an expert at was very likely to cheer him up.

It worked. Zuko’s hesitant grimace briefly curled into the sharp grin of someone who knew _exactly_ how to go from here. 

“Oh. Sure.”

Jee smiled back, pillowed his head on his arm, and closed his eyes just a heartbeat before a firm tug at the laces of his pants made his waistband dig into his sides. 

_Thank you._

It was good. Nowhere near the best he’d ever had, and the unfamiliar angle was clearly making Zuko a bit clumsy. But there was nothing in the world quite like the warm, familiar, _alive_ touch of another firebender. 

He’d spent most of his life having sex in shared mess rooms and communal tents where absolute silence was the only option, and it took conscious effort to let himself sigh and gasp out loud. Beginners needed feedback, though. And the fire in Zuko’s fingers seemed to throb with every sound Jee made, as if it had been chafed so raw and tender before that the slightest tough still made it spark. 

Jee kept his eyes closed, curled one hand around Zuko’s knee, and let himself be led wherever the brat would push him to go. He might not be terribly good at that in most circumstances, but they weren’t standing on a rolling deck and shouting at each other right now. This was different. He was comfortable in his own bed, and Zuko felt as warm and harmless as any sated lover.

In the end, he’d barely caught his breath when he felt the warm press of Zuko’s thigh against his side pull away. Jee groped to the side, blindly, and caught a few long fingers. 

“Stay,” he murmured.

The fingers in his own stayed absolutely still.

“No. I need to work on our South Pole expedition tomorrow. I won’t sleep if I stay here.”

Jee cracked open his eyes. Zuko was staring down at their joined hands with a vaguely nonplussed expression.

“Of course you’ll sleep,” Jee said. He gave the fingers a squeeze, then an encouraging tug. “That was good. Stay.”

“I think I know perfectly well when I’ll sleep and when I won’t, Lieutenant.” Zuko pulled his fingers away and stared at them for a second, frowning a little. Then he dropped his hand to his side and turned a rather perturbed look on Jee. 

“Lieutenant, did you start preparations for the expedition?”

Jee didn’t groan out loud, but only because he’d started gritting his teeth in anticipation of another whiplash mood change the moment the frown appeared. _No, you only told me about it two hours ago and I wasted all that time gossiping about you with General Iroh and sucking you off_ was the truth. But nobody ever needed the truth. 

He reached down to tie his pants properly and tried to think of an acceptable reply. Had he actually done something to prepare for their newest upcoming misadventure? Just something small? Why yes, he had.

“Yes, sir. I informed your esteemed uncle and made progress on the supply lists.” The supply lists had definitely crossed his mind, for at least a couple of seconds.

“Good,” Zuko said. “…I think I’ll go work on our course now. I’m not tired.”

Youth. “It’s night, sir.”

“So? The sooner we finish preparing, the sooner we can go south.”

He didn’t actually leave, though. 

Silence stretched between them until the cabin was so quiet that Jee could actually hear the thumping of the engines may levels below. But Zuko just kept standing there, peering down at the bed as if he knew he was forgetting something and was busy jogging his memory.

Jee briefly considered trying to get up and speak to his superior from a properly respectful position, then decided Zuko could just shove that wherever he liked. Every muscle in Jee’s body felt wonderfully, blissfully relaxed; even his back seemed to have forgotten it was supposed to be aching. He could barely recall the last time someone had gotten him off in his own bed, where he could just roll over and go to sleep immediately. Sitting up or - spirits help him - getting to his feet was the very last thing he wanted to do right now.

“Yes, sir. All right.” he muttered. _If you’re going to go, then fucking well go already so I can close my eyes and savor what I still can._

Zuko shifted his weight to one foot, then to the other. Then back again.

“Remember to check if they sell any sealfur socks in Ishihama. We really could have used those when we were on the ice last year.”

Jee wondered if it would be treason if he slammed his pillow over his head and hummed tunes until Zuko left him alone.

“Yes, sir,” he just repeated. “I will get socks.”

More silence.

“Is your back better?”

Jee turned his head a little to better consider the slightly hesitant look on Zuko’s face. Maybe the brat was just worried that Jee might become physically unable to prepare for an expedition if he had some sort of escalating health problem, but Jee chose to interpret it as an attempt at politeness. Good behavior had to be encouraged wherever it came from, he supposed.

“I’ll get one of the others to work on it if it still hurts tomorrow, sir. It’ll be just fine. It’s been troubling me on and off for years.”

“Very well, Lieutenant.” Another long silence. “Okay. I need to plan our course now.” 

He still wasn’t leaving.

What did he _want_? He clearly didn’t want to go away. He wasn’t tired, obnoxiously young and energetic as he was. He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to work on his newest Avatar project.

And he didn’t want to go away. Did that mean he wanted to work in here? And wanted Jee to… What? Help? Zuko always did all his planning by himself. Jee couldn’t remember ever having been asked for his input on something Avatar-related. All he did was carry out orders when the plans were finished. Any advice that he’d been allowed to contribute over the past few years had been carefully funneled through the General, disguised as friendly suggestions.

Jee took another good look at Zuko’s intent, expectant expression. Oh yes, he knew that face. Back during the summer, when he’d been fixing up the skiff during swimming breaks, Zuko had started turning up on the little boat to just stare at what Jee was doing. He’d taken days to actually join in. And he’d looked exactly like he did now - like he was curious and interested and wanted something that he had no idea how to ask for.

Jee couldn’t recall any details from the hundreds of little children stories he’d been subjected to by General Iroh, Pikeman Niu, and all the other fathers he’d ever served with, but they’d all been in agreement on the proper way of dealing with sleepless brats. If they refused to go to bed until you agreed to one more game or one more story, giving in was the worst thing you could possibly do.

_Perhaps this boy wants you for a friend._

It still sounded absurd. And yet, here the brat was, still not leaving.

Jee sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. “All right, but only for a few minutes,” he muttered into his fingers.

“What?”

“Nothing, sir.” Jee began to push himself up on one arm. It took him a moment to find a seating position that didn’t hurt. “Would you like to tell me about your ideas for the expedition, sir?”

Zuko made a quick, two-handed grabbing gesture in front of his chest. It looked so strange and pointless that Jee was almost sure it was an aborted hand-clap. 

“Yes!” 

Jee reached under the bunk - ow, ow - and pulled out the bottle of paint stripper he kept for emergencies. If this sort of thing kept happening, he should probably start stocking at least three full bottles at all times.

“Drink, sir?”

Zuko frowned. “This is a council, not a party.”

Jee stared at him. _You were jerking me off five minutes ago._

“One drink won’t hurt, sir.” He heaved himself off the bed with a pained groan. “I have cups.” Cups were definitely more suited to the atmosphere of a council than a bottle.

“Fine,” Zuko muttered while Jee rifled through his chest. He found the cups, surreptitiously checked if they were clean, and poured a little bit of paint stripper for Zuko and a full cup for himself.

When he turned around, Zuko was standing with his arms crossed. He still hadn’t tied his vest.

“Here you go, sir.”

“Hmph.” Zuko took the cup, gave it a suspicious look, and put it down on the desk. 

Jee lowered himself onto the bunk again and considered inviting Zuko to join him, but the brat had already begun to pace around the cabin.

“First of all, we need to get close enough to the shore to find a landing place. The Southern Raiders used to have a route that we haven’t tried yet - one that should take us mostly around instead of through all that pack ice that stopped us the first winter.” 

Zuko stood still for a moment and traced a burning finger through the air in front of his face, painting a rough approximation of the South Pole’s known north-eastern shore. It was a small fire, but it lit up the gloomy cabin like a lantern.

“The ice churns around the Sea of Ri on a counter-clockwise current, so we shouldn’t bump straight into it if we approach by sailing on past Kyoshi…” A glowing dot was added to the map to represent the island. “…and then turning south, right through the Southern Air Islands, instead of trying to round Cape Meihi from the east…”

Zuko frowned, then retraced the rapidly dissolving shoreline with a fresh ribbon of flame. “I need to check the charts, though, I think there was something about some stupid glacier that got in the way on the Sea of Ri’s western shore…” He glared at his fire-map as it began to fade again almost immediately.

Ah, so the South Pole idea really had popped into his head just today. Jee wasn’t quite sure why the General would be that alarmed by Zuko getting sudden flashes of inspiration for Avatar-hunting trips; it happened often enough. Most of his destinations seemed to be chosen based on a mix of decades-old rumors about spirit phenomena, never-explained hunches, and sheer boredom.

Jee considered the afterglow of the map. So far, this plan looked remarkably reasonable.

“Well?” Zuko sounded a little annoyed. “What do you think?” He waved away the remains of his map with one hand, making the left half of his vest flap around. He _still_ hadn’t tied it. It framed the naked half of his torso like a red wing.

 _I like your nipples,_ Jee did not say. “It sounds good, sir. Whatever helps us dodge the ice. We were damned lucky to get out of it in one piece that first winter.”

“We’ll go with ice-proof plating this time, anyway. Once we’re past the pack ice, I want to find a bay where the ship can stay moored for a while and go on on foot.” Zuko frowned deeper. “We still need to scout inland. Just sailing past the shore all the time is pointless, the Avatar won’t be sitting on a beach waiting for us to spot him.”

Jee shook his head. Stupid to hope that the brat would keep on making sense after that good start. “Going on foot was a catastrophe last spring, sir.”

“We just couldn’t go on because of that freak snowstorm,” Zuko snapped. Judging by the look on his face, the polar weather was going to be in a lot of trouble if it dared bother him like that again. “We know much more about traveling through snow now, and we’ll go prepared for any storm.” He began to tap two fingers on his arm, as if counting. “We’ll take better tents. And proper footgear, definitely proper footgear. Warm hats instead of helmets, and something to put over our eyes so we don’t get snow-blind again…”

“Sir,” Jee interrupted. “We didn’t fail because there was a storm. We failed because we had no idea what we were doing! We were unprepared. And no matter how many precautions we take this time, none of us has any real experience with polar travel. Even the firebenders were getting frostbitten last year, and the pikemen…”

“ _Yes_ , Lieutenant, I know what happened. I was there.” Zuko stalked over to the fallen chair, pulled it upright, and sat down without waiting for an invitation. He snatched the cup from the desk and took a sip, but immediately grimaced and put it down on the chair’s arm rest.

Taking some of the stronger pikemen on an expedition over the ice to help carry gear had sounded like a good idea at the time. They’d guessed that non-benders would have an unpleasant time of it, but assumed that the benders could just warm them up again in their tents in the evenings. But the speed at which the biting cold and the relentless freezing wind had reduced those otherwise big, strong men to staggering wrecks had been stunning. Jee remembered cursing Zuko’s idiocy at pushing on even when it was terrifyingly clear to everyone else in the fourteen-man party that if they didn’t turn back to the warmth and safety of the ship, people were going to die.

He’d been meaning to shout at the selfish brat for that one until he cried for his mommy, but then he’d been too busy taking care of a dozen frostbitten patients, and Zuko had made himself scarce and disappeared off Jee’s radar for weeks.

“Sir?”

Zuko was staring at the wall. He was rotating the cup with one hand. “What?”

“When we were out on the ice last time, did you realize how bad off the pikemen were?”

“No,” Zuko said at once. He didn’t stop staring at the wall. “They weren’t complaining. I thought they were fine.”

Ah. It was… good to hear that he hadn’t actually known he was almost killing people.

“Complaining men are healthy men, sir. It’s when they don’t have the strength left to protest that you need to start worrying.”

“Yeah, Uncle told me that when we got back.” Zuko took a rather hesitant sip from the cup and clutched the other arm rest with one hand. “I’m definitely not taking any non-benders onto the ice again.”

The brat was putting himself in other people’s shoes, learning from the mistakes he’d made, and putting actual planning into a journey that he knew was going to be dangerous. He really was growing up. Jee wondered when this had started happening, and exactly how much of it he’d missed.

“That’s a good idea, sir.”

Zuko tilted his head and gave Jee a considering look. “You were fine during the expedition, weren’t you?” 

“Mostly, sir.” Just a few chilblains near the end, when he’d been so preoccupied with almost carrying Bao that he hadn’t been focusing on his bending properly.

Zuko raised the cup to his lips, held it for a moment, and then put it down without drinking. “Because you knew the breath of fire… That must have been it.”

“Probably, sir.” He’d certainly been using it almost non-stop while out on the ice. “Wait. But you knew the breath of fire as well by then, right? Sir? And you still got frostbitten.” He held up a hand, fingers pressed together to simulate the thick gloves of bandages that nearly everyone in the polar party had been walking around in for days after the ill-fated trek. Zuko had been wearing them too; Jee distinctly remembered him complaining to his uncle that he didn’t want to be fed and was just going to drink soup until he was capable of holding chopsticks again.

Zuko scowled.

“Uncle only taught me the breath of fire only a few weeks before we set out! I tried, I just couldn’t keep it up until we got back to the ship.” He sounded angry at being forced to reveal even this small and, to be honest, rather understandable failure. “I’m much better at it now. I’ve practiced every day.”

“You’re very good at it,” Jee reassured him, hoping to forestall an argument. “How long are you planning to scout inland?”

Zuko settled back into the chair again. “As long as it takes. I want to try at least a few weeks.” He began to snap the fingers of his free hand and stared hard at the resulting sparks. “Maybe if we only take people who can do the breath of fire…”

Not a bad idea in theory, but… “That won’t be an option, sir. The only other people on this ship who can do the breath of fire are your esteemed uncle and the First Mate. And Mechanist Peng, a little.” Jee took a sip from his own cup. He’d forgotten he had it. “General Iroh and Mechanist Peng are too old for that sort of journey, and the First Mate can’t walk over rough terrain.”

“Right.” Zuko frowned. “Fine, I’ll just take you then. I hate traveling with a whole train of soldiers anyway. They whine, and they’re unreliable.” He nodded at Jee.

For one very stupid instant, Jee felt a thrill of pleasure at the idea that of all the people on board, _he_ was considered the only one who had the skills and the strength to pull off a feat as difficult as trekking through a frozen, empty wasteland for weeks in the dead of winter.

Then he actually thought about what it would be like to trek through a frozen, empty wasteland for weeks, in the dead of winter, in the company of Prince Zuko in full Avatar-hunting mode.

“No,” he said without even thinking about it.

Zuko raised his single eyebrow.

“What, no?”

“Sir, we… We could never last long out there with just two people. Two can’t carry the gear that we’d need to survive even one night out there, let alone weeks.” Just the thought of all the things they’d been dragging along last time made Jee’s back cramp up again. “There would be a tent, and tools, and crockery, and spare clothes, and sleeping bags. And the food… We’d need to eat a massive amount every day, if we’re going to do that much exercise and use the breath of fire all the time. That’s not a load two people can shoulder.”

Zuko scowled and turned to the wall again. He was quiet for a long time, long enough that Jee began to nurse a small, tender bit of hope. _It’s impossible, any idiot would see it’s impossible. Give up. Come on, give up…_

Abruptly, Zuko sat up straight.

“We could haul the gear and the food on a sledge…” 

What? “Sir, aren’t sledges usually pulled by… polar fox-dogs?” Some kind of animal, definitely. Jee had heard of sledges, and read about them once or twice, but he’d never actually been near one. He was quite happy with that state of affairs. The contraptions sounded insanely dangerous.

Which was quite possibly why Zuko might like them. In fact, he was starting to look alarmingly enthusiastic.

“Yes, usually, but people can pull sledges too. I read about that in the travel journals of Sei the Explorer. When she made port at Kyoshi Island two hundred years ago, people there told her about trade journeys they made to a tribe at the pole.” He pulled a face and looked up at the ceiling, as if he was trying to remember something. “They took these special light sledges, and they pulled them. They had a harness for themselves… A broad belt, like so, with the sledge attached to it.” He indicated some sort of shape around his middle.

That sounded like just the kind of lunacy that only Water savages or dirt munchers would ever be desperate enough to get up to. “They _pulled_ big sledges over snow? With just two people? That can’t work, sir.”

“Sei wrote that they pulled with three or four people,” Zuko conceded. “I’m sure we can manage it with two if we make an effort. It’s not like we can use the rhinos, their feet can’t stand the snow.”

“How do you know you could haul a sledge with two people? You don’t even have any idea how sledges work. Sir.”

Zuko glared. “I’ll figure it out. It’ll be hard work, but so what? What are you, an old woman?”

 _Not crazy._ Jee sighed and tugged at his sideburns. “Sir, neither of us has ever done that kind of labor. We don’t know if we’ll be able to take it, and if we fail, we’ll probably be too far away for help to reach us in time. And we don’t really know what sort of trouble we can get into on the ice. And you don’t know where you’re going. And…”

Zuko waved a hand. “Stop complaining, Lieutenant. So we don’t know what might happen, and it’s dangerous. Deal with it. This is a mission to capture the Avatar, not a holiday.” 

He paused and looked at Jee, good eye suddenly wide and alert. “Oh. You think it’ll hurt your back?” 

Jee hadn’t even thought about that.

“…Not sure, sir. I’ve never done anything like dragging a sledge.”

Zuko looked pensive again, and vaguely troubled, as if he was actually considering if he could avoid giving Jee any fresh back troubles with this jaunt.

“Whatever,” he finally said. “We’ll figure something out. Make sure you find some sort of sledge in Ishihama, in case we need it. Now go to sleep and make sure your back is better by tomorrow.”

He rose from the chair and walked past the bunk. By the time Jee realized what was happening and moved to grab the nearest princely body part, Zuko had already moved out of reach again.

Jee dropped his hand. Damn it. “Yes, sir,” he grumbled. “I’ll order my back to get better.”

“Don’t be flippant,” Zuko snapped. He began to turn towards the door again. “Get some rest and make sure this… problem… doesn’t persist, Lieutenant. I need you fit for the expedition.”

That almost sounded like _I’m counting on you_. After a fashion.

“Yes, sir. Will you come back tomorrow night?” 

Jee wanted to hide under the pillow as soon as the words had left his mouth. No one could blame him for wanting to make sure a handsome and very promising new night-time friend came back, but he could have tried to sound a little less desperate about it.

Zuko looked surprised for a moment. Then a small, pleased smile flitted across his lips.

“All right.”

He gave Jee a barely-there nod, turned, and swept out of the cabin before Jee had thought to point out that his vest was still untied.

Ah. Damn it. But there was always tomorrow, and that thought made Jee smile some more as he pulled a padded winter blanket over himself and tried to get comfortable for the night. The pain his lower back was much better, although he still couldn’t quite twist into his favorite sleeping position, half onto his stomach. He contented himself with folding his pillow in two and stuffing it between his belly and the hard mattress for support. It did quite nicely, and the edges dug in in almost the exact spot where the heel of Zuko’s hand had been pushing down, hard and warm and confident.

It wasn’t until the next morning that he noticed there was a stark black hand print seared very deep into the wood of his desk.

* * *

_**Unsigned note folded into a small square and tucked under the back of Prince Zuko’s belt while he was talking with General Iroh and couldn’t react to it** _

_Sir, from today on, I’ll make certain to be alone in my cabin after the evening watch every night. Do feel entirely free to come by whenever you want._

_**Unsigned note slipped into Lieutenant Jee’s hand** _

_THE NEW LOTTERY IS TODAY. WHAT HOUR CAN I COME IF YOU HAVE THE MIDNIGHT WATCH? OR IF WE END UP ON DIFFERENT WATCHES?_

_AND DON’T PAW AT ME IN FRONT OF MY UNCLE._

_**Unsigned note tucked under the back of Prince Zuko’s belt while he was getting a mild scolding from General Iroh for being distracted during firebending practice** _

_The lottery is rigged, sir. You’re on my watch for another month. Forenoon and evening this time._

_**Unsigned note dropped down the back of Lieutenant Jee’s collar, along with a slimy dead jellyfish-butterfly** _

_SOMEBODY WILL NOTICE._

_**Unsigned note left peeking out from under one of Prince Zuko’s meditation candles** _

_The men will just assume I want to put myself on the easy watches, sir. They won’t care unless I do that more than a couple of months in a row. Everyone knows it’s rigged._

_**Unsigned note floating in Lieutenant Jee’s afternoon tea** _

_I DIDN’T._

_**Unsigned note hidden under Prince Zuko’s tea cup** _

_Pay attention to the men today, sir. They’ll be falling over themselves to look all hard-working and make me forget whatever they got up to in the last couple of weeks. Nobody wants to be on the morning watch._

_**Unsigned note lying in the middle of Lieutenant Jee’s desk** _

_PUT PIKEMAN BAO AND HELMSMAN LEI ON THE MORNING WATCH._

_**Unsigned note slipped behind the buckle of Prince Zuko’s belt during an brief but intense public argument with Lieutenant Jee about the sorry state of the shower room and who can be held responsible for that** _

_Sir, pikeman Bao has been on the morning watch for three months. I really need to put him elsewhere at least once._

_**Unsigned note smacked into Lieutenant Jee’s hand just before the lottery** _

_DO IT, LIEUTENANT. AND I WANT UNCLE ON THE AFTERNOON WATCH, AND PIKEMAN SHI ON THE EVENING WATCH, AND NONE OF THE COMBAT FIREBENDERS ON THE EVENING WATCH. THEY’RE LAZY AND ANNOYING._

_**Unsigned note hidden in the toe of Prince Zuko’s right slipper, along with a nasty sharp pebble** _

_~~You little tyrant, I will run my own ship in whatever way I~~ Yes, sir._

* * *

Zuko returned that evening, and the next, and the evening after that. He refused to stay the night, though. Jee tried to ask him, but it only got him a shrug and a rather alarming sound that was halfway between a snarl and a grumble.

It wasn’t until another evening after that, when he was still awake enough to shoot a baleful glare at the back of Zuko’s bald head as the brat slipped out the door, that Jee realized what had been puzzling him about Zuko’s comings and goings the last couple of nights. He’d forgotten to warn him about the tripwire at the door. But Zuko had clearly been stepping over it this whole time; if he’d fallen on his face even once, Jee would have gotten an earful and then some.

Odd. Missing it once was a stroke of luck. Missing it five nights in a row was just freakish, unless Zuko had noticed the thief trap and was avoiding it deliberately. But why hadn’t he yelled at Jee for stringing wires around the ship, then?

* * *

For a couple of days, Jee drafted plans and lists for the South Pole expedition. It was suddenly very hard to concentrate in his familiar and comfortable workspace. He couldn't even glance at the hand print on the desk without remembering how Zuko's thighs had pressed against his ears, and how they'd muffled every soft gasp and whimper into a mere hint of sound.

He covered the mark up with a page of music he’d been working on. A temporary measure, but it helped him focus long enough to slap together some plans for expedition shopping and gear testing that were likely to keep everyone alive and Zuko too busy to be much of a pain at least until they actually reached the South Pole. 

As soon as he was done, he carried his papers down to the engine room to pass them on to the next unlucky bugger down the chain of command. He found Haisu bent over with his head and shoulders somewhere deep inside the side vent of the left auxiliary engine, tools scattered around his feet. The man emitted a rather nice squeak when Jee slapped him on the ass with the papers.

"Time for some real work," he announced when Haisu emerged from the vent and shot him a half-hearted glare. "We're heading for the South Pole. Prince Zuko wants to check it out again."

Haisu made the exact same grimace that the General had produced upon hearing of their upcoming polar adventure.

"Really?"

"Yes, really." Jee waited for Haisu to finish wiping his sooty hands on a rag and then handed over the papers. "And detours are out, as usual, so our only stop between now and the Water savages is Ishihama. We need to get ice-proof plating there, and buy everyone some proper damn winter gear this time. And whatever else we need. Look these lists over and check with Cook and Peng if we need any other supplies. Lei says we'll arrive in six days. Five, if this weather holds."

"Yes, sir." Haisu took a long look at the papers. He didn't seem to be actually reading any of the words, though.

"Sir... I don't think we can afford this expedition."

Jee sighed and leaned back against the side of the engine. Hmmm, warm. "That plating is going to cost us all our desserts for a year, isn't it?"

"A bit more than that..."

"We need it, though. If we go without and Zuko decides he's stronger than the icebergs, we'll all end up as penguin food. We were damned lucky we didn’t hit anything the last time."

“Hmm, yes. And now everyone how dangerous it is to sail down there. I think we have a couple of people who’d rather mutiny than go back,” Haisu murmured. He was starting to look a little desperate. "Can't you convince the prince to go elsewhere?"

Jee raised his eyebrows.

"Okay," Haisu said. Then, with an odd sort of insistence, "We really can't afford this with what we have now."

All right. Jee didn't remember their finances being quite that precarious, but he wasn't the one who kept the ledger every day. He hated numbers. So did Haisu, but Jee was the captain, so he could make Haisu do them anyway.

“What’s the problem?”

“The plating,” Haisu said. “We might be able to scrape together enough for the rest of the gear on this list, but plating would cost us our monthly allowance for half a year. We barely have any savings as it is. It’s impossible.”

“Are you sure?” Jee had guessed that that one would be expensive, but…

Haisu nodded. “They make it from some sort of new iron these days. It’s good, it doesn’t shatter as easily as the old stuff. But it costs an arm and a leg.” He frowned. “Did Prince Zuko propose this?”

“Yes.” Jee frowned, trying to recall how that conversation had gone. “Well, we discussed how it can be useful and how not, and he told me to get us some.”

The frown deepened. “I don’t understand why he’d do that. He checks the ledger, he knows we don’t have that sort of money…”

Jee recalled the pile of expensive-looking Avatar scrolls he’d spotted in Zuko’s cabin. “I suppose he means to pay for it from his personal account. Or his private allowance. Wherever he gets his extras from.”

Haisu’s frown looked like it was settling in on his face permanently. “Prince Zuko doesn’t have a personal account.”

“You probably just don’t know about it. It’s got nothing to do with the ship, it’s for buying scrolls and things with.”

“I’m sure I would have heard of it, at least…” Haisu shook his head and looked Jee straight in the eyes. “Sir, we cannot afford this expedition.”

Jee glared. He was getting that niggling feeling again, the sense that things were happening behind his back.

"If he doesn’t have a private stash, you can just go to the port authority in Ishihama and ask them to put us on credit. They'll try to rob us blind and we'll need years to repay it all, but Zuko can just deal with that."

"But we're not proper Navy. They're not obliged to give us any repairs, and they won't take our word of honor that we'll repay a loan. Not with the prince in charge." Haisu didn't add _and with you as second-in-command_ , or even glance at Jee's short hair. That was kind of him. "They'll want personal written pledges from all the officers, and they'll ask to inspect our ledger."

He reached into his tunic and pulled out the thin, leather-wrapped ledger book. Jee glanced down, confused.

"Why are you walking about with that thing? Oh, never mind." There weren't precisely any rules against carrying the on-board administration around in your shirt. "Go ask for the credit. I'll pledge, and Zuko will pledge his own mother if it might get him the Avatar. And just let them look at the ledger. We don't have anything to hide."

Silence.

 _Spirits in ginger sauce_. Jee put on his fiercest glare and looked Haisu up and down, from the book in his hands to the anxious pinch of his face. 

"First Mate, did you do anything unlawful with our ledger?"

"No, sir." A short pause. "But Prince Zuko has been falsifying it for the last four months."

Jee blinked.

"Who's been what?”

 

(tbc)


	9. In which books are cooked, part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to amanda91 for a lighting-fast interim beta! Another grossly oversized chapter, meaning that this fic has hit 100K. Time to get started on that plot I've been planning for over a year. Pacing, what's that? 
> 
> This is a direct continuation of the last scene of the previous chapter, in which Lieutenant Jee was making preparations for a South Pole expedition and got informed that Prince Zuko has been engaging in financial fraud.

Haisu made a vaguely displeased face, as if Jee was the one who wasn't making a lick of sense here.

"I said, Prince Zuko has been falsifying our ledger for the last four months." He held the ledger book up to Jee's face and wiggled it a little. "He's been changing the numbers on the letters of credit."

"Wait." Jee looked around the engine room. There was nobody in sight. He could hear the stokers having a half-shouted conversation through the open door of the furnace hold, but they probably wouldn't be able to hear anything else over the noise of the machines.

He leaned in a little and lowered his voice, just to be safe. "What do you mean, he's been falsifying the ledger?"

Haisu let the book fall open on his arm. He paged to the end, then turned it around so Jee could have a look. 

"This is the letter he took to the money changers when we were in Nan Seng. Look at the amount."

_By the authority of the Royal Treasury of the Fire Nation, this document, stamped and sealed on the eleventh day of the tenth month, awards the sum of one hundred and eighty golden sen to His Royal Highness Prince Zuko, intended for..._

The side of the parchment was a patchwork of bright red stamps in various shapes and sizes. The stylized flame of the Fire Lord, a standard stamp to indicate the money had been payed out, a stamp from the deputy of Nan Seng's quartermaster, and the simple two-pronged flame that was Zuko's royal seal, slashed through with a thick vertical line to signal his banished status. A child's crest, still, he should really decide on his own motif soon... 

Jee shook his head. It was all there, right and proper. "We've been getting a hundred and eighty gold for two years. This looks normal to..." 

Then he noticed it. A single one of the elegantly drawn characters looked out of place, too large and unbalanced. 

Jee reached out to touch it. It felt rougher than the rest, too. "This eight isn't right."

"Yes." Haisu began to page back. "And look at last month. It says a hundred and eighty, but I'm sure this character was a six at first. Somebody scratched away the top two strokes and lengthened the bottom two upwards to make it look like an eight. And the previous two months had whole characters replaced with eights, like in the new letter." He grimaced at the ledger. "It looks like the numbers suddenly started changing. Maybe they even changed every month. But he tampered with them to make it look like we got a hundred and eighty, like usual."

Jee forced himself to touch every letter and make sure Haisu wasn't imagining things. The out-of-place characters made his skin crawl. Somehow, he knew he was looking at something bad.

"But Prince Zuko did hand you a hundred and eighty golden sen every month?"

"He did," Haisu said.

This was making less sense with every passing second. Jee shook his head. "Why would he..." He looked up. "Wait, so you're saying the royal treasury's changing our allowance? Why?"

"I don't know."

"But they did change it. At least according to these letters. If the General knew it had changed, he'd have told us, and why..." Jee paged through the ledger, back to before the wobbly numbers began appearing. Bad, bad, bad.

He closed the book and stared hard at Haisu. "Let me get this straight. You think our allowance changed, and Prince Zuko is hiding it? You're saying he's _falsifying_ official documents with the Fire Lord's seal on them? To get more gold out of the money changers?"

Haisu nodded. "It's the only explanation I can think of."

Jee closed his eyes and took a deep breath. What fresh kind of insanity was this? It couldn't possibly be what it looked like, could it? There was just no way that Zuko would try to defraud his dearly beloved Fire Lord father.

"First Mate, do you have any idea what you're accusing Prince Zuko of? How do you even know he was the one who tampered with those letters?"

"It can't have been anyone else," Haisu said at once. "Prince Zuko opens the letters and keeps them with him until he can go get them stamped, and then he gives them to me together with the money. Back in Nan Seng, I saw Shi catch the hawk and hand the letter over with my own eyes. Prince Zuko took it and went straight into the harbor. Then he came back with the money. Nobody else even touched the scroll."

Jee took another deep breath and prayed for inspiration, some kind of explanation for this unbelievable, baffling, _terrifying_ foolishness. None came to mind. 

Change the topic. "How did you miss this for four months? It's as obvious as a rhino in an ice field! My grandmother could have forged it better!" If the tampering was visible to Jee's untrained eyes, people who regularly handled this sort of document would spot it from a mile away.

"I noticed it the first time." Haisu looked a little uncertain now. "I think Prince Zuko just can't see how obvious it is that he changed things. The characters on these letters are tiny, but the prince is _really_ far-sighted. He usually writes a lot bigger than this."

That made sense, much as Jee hated to admit it. Zuko's characters were never anything but an outsized scrawl.

"But why didn't the money changers spot this?"

"I don't know," Haisu muttered unhappily.

Jee resisted the urge to set the papers on fire just to make them go away. "Why didn't you tell me?"

A desperate look crossed Haisu's face. "I was hoping General Iroh would get involved! Or that the prince would stop by himself!"

" _You should have told me_ ," Jee said. Think. He had to think, find out what was going on here and _fix_ it, but his mind kept stumbling over the very idea that the brat might be robbing the royal treasury. The sheer gall of it... 

He scratched his sideburns and tried to remember the standard procedure for this sort of situation. "Technically, if our commander's committing crimes against the throne, we're supposed to report him to the regional officer in command..."

Haisu couldn't have looked more horrified if Jee had suggested that they cut Zuko up and eat him.

"But we're in the middle of the south-western quadrant!"

"I know, I know," Jee said. "That's Zhao. No official reporting. I wouldn't turn _Zhao_ over to Zhao." He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "Or turn Zuko over to anyone else, for spirits' sake. If he's up to mischief, his uncle's the one who should discipline him."

Haisu blinked, then heaved a sigh of relief. "Oh. Good."

For normal people, forging official Fire Nation documents would be enough to earn a lifetime stay in the bowels of the Boiling Rock. If they were lucky. Jee didn't have the faintest idea what might be the punishment for a banished and dishonored royal prince who decided to heap some new flavor of treason on top of whatever he'd done to get banished in the first place. Nothing much? Taking his ship and crew from him and letting him chase the Avatar on foot? Something worse? Not the Boiling Rock, surely.

By all Koh's eight hundred legs, if they couldn't cover this one up... It was a sheer miracle that the brat had succeeded in tricking the money changers for so long. Who knew what other damage he'd managed to do in four whole months.

"You idiot," he growled at Haisu as he pushed the ledger book back into his hands. "You half-baked idiot, you should have told me!"

He _relied_ on this man. Haisu was a good second-in-command, intelligent and competent and well-loved among the crew, and Jee didn't know anyone he trusted more.

Haisu returned Jee's glare without flinching.

"Sir... Heng. I'm sorry, but I thought you might turn him in."

What? "Turn the brat in to _Zhao_? What kind of monster do you take me for?"

"I don't know! You always sounded like you hated him."

Oh, ashes. "I don't hate him!"

"Yes, I know that _now_ ," Haisu countered. "I was going to tell you about the letters today, that's why I brought the ledger..."

Jee sighed. "Since when are you on his side, anyway?"

"I'm on your side." Haisu was starting to look genuinely miserable. "I'm sorry, all right? I didn't know what to do. He's just a kid, I kept thinking they might throw him in jail or something."

Jee shook his head and let his back thud against the engine, then winced as the slight impact sent a jolt of pain through his still-tender muscles. Right near the place where Zuko had been digging his heels in while Jee kissed the breath out of him.

"He's not a kid. And you did him no favors, letting him make things worse for himself all these months."

"I suppose not," Haisu muttered.

"And during all the time that you've had to think on this nonsense, did you find a way to solve it?"

"...Not really, no."

That left only one other start of a solution that Jee could think of. "We need to inform General Iroh."

Haisu glanced at the open door to the furnace hold and lowered his voice, as if they were still in a tent in the shadow of Ba Sing Se's great wall where anyone could hear even a whispered secret. "Maybe there's some kind of explanation, and we don't need to involve anyone else? Do you really want to tell General Iroh that his nephew is embezzling crown funds?"

The mere idea of how the General's face would crumble in disappointment when Jee told him... The old man would _grieve_ over this sort of thing.

"Of course I don't want to do that. But do you have a better idea?"

"I was hoping you could ask the prince for an explanation first. Since you're getting along with him these days." Haisu stood with his back straight and stared ahead, all business, as if he hadn't just alluded to catching his captain and his commander rutting against a door.

"No," Jee said. It was the politest reply he could come up with.

"Heng, you're the only one of us who could ask him."

"Are you deaf? I said no." 

Haisu just stared at him. He was wearing that mildly exasperated expression that said _I was there for all the worst moments of your life and I know all your most embarrassing secrets, and the only reason I ever obey you at all is that I'm the laziest bastard ever born on the Thousand Islands, and taking initiative myself is such hard work._

Jee sighed. He hated everybody on this whole stupid ship.

"Haisu, I'm _not_ getting along with him. I spent six nights making out with him. Just six." He was keeping score only because he had little else to do, not because he was an obsessive lech. He could stop counting any time he wanted. "He's not in it for my personality. He doesn't trust me any farther than he can throw me. We don't _chat_. If I accuse him of falsifying official documents, he'll just try to blow my head off."

Haisu shook his head quickly. "I didn't say to accuse him, of course he'd go crazy. But maybe you can mention it? Gently? Sound like you want to help, see how he reacts?"

"I'm telling you, he'll blow a gasket, and then I'll have to tell General Iroh everything anyway. And the brat will know I was the one who squealed on him." There would definitely not be any more activities up against doors if Zuko had some sort of horrific fight with his beloved uncle and then realized it was Jee who had blabbed about his newest mischief.

Haisu seemed to brighten a little. 

"Oh, wait. Maybe the prince will trust you more if you help him fix this instead of informing General Iroh?"

Jee opened his mouth to protest, and then actually thought about the suggestion.

"That might work," he said slowly.

He _had_ promised to mediate between the brat and his uncle... Although helping him hide serious criminal activity was definitely not what he'd had in mind. Still, here Jee had an opportunity to prove that he was true to his word.

Or possibly an opportunity to build his own funeral pyre. But he had to do something. Zuko was a lousy forger, and it was only a matter of time before they had to show the ledger to some official for some reason or another. The tampering would be discovered, and unless Zuko confessed in a burst of self-sacrificial idiocy, the authorities would assume Haisu was the culprit. Magistrates never blamed a higher officer for anything if they could get away with blaming a lower one.

Damage control. They needed to work on damage control now. If Jee gave himself more time to think about the one thousand ways in which this could end in disaster, he was afraid he just might end up turning the brat over to Zhao anyway.

He tapped the ledger book with one knuckle. "Can you cover this up?"

Haisu shook his head. "Not in a way that would fool anyone who looks closely." A shrug. "A couple of pages could fall out of the book and get swallowed by a rhino. Happens all the time. Everyone knows those beasts would eat their own horns if they could reach them."

Jee snorted. "Good enough for now, but that's no solution if he just keeps doing this every month. It has to stop."

Oh, by all hells, they still had to figure out how to get the ship outfitted for the South Pole. Asking for credit was impossible now. Damn it, he really was going to have to have this conversation with Zuko. Another tour of duty on Zhao's ship sounded like more fun.

"Fine. I'll talk with him," Jee sighed.

Haisu smiled and held out the ledger. "Good. Want this?"

The man had no right to look so relieved while Jee's suffering was only just about to begin. Jee glared in silence until Haisu seemed a little less cheerful.

"No, I don't want that. Get out of here and go do something useful. Make some buckets."

"Sure, Heng. After I finish cleaning the engine."

"If you don't stop smiling, you're going on the latrines roster for a month." 

"Yes, sir." Haisu nodded amiably, as if that wasn't a completely pointless threat. He was the one who was actually in charge of organizing cleaning duties. Which was presumably why Shi kept vanishing off the latrines roster no matter how often Jee ordered him put on it.

"Whatever," Jee grumbled. "Tell me. Can we run this ship with an allowance that's less than a hundred and eighty?"

"Not really," Haisu replied, so quickly that it was clear he'd already calculated it. He looked much more grave all of a sudden. "I've been delaying whatever costly repairs I can, and we've saved up a little. We can get by for another two months with that plus a reduced allowance. If we put off all the repairs we were going to make to the auxiliary engine, and we don't replace the catapult's sling, and we don't do anything else that costs anything extra."

"All right. Good work," Jee sighed.

Haisu frowned down at the ledger. He looked almost angry. "But if something expensive blows up, we're done." He looked Jee straight in the eyes. "Heng, I mean that the minute we overspend on _anything_ but the essentials, this journey is _done_. Prince Zuko won't be able to afford the ship."

Jee blinked and tried to process that. It wasn't like the idea had never come up before; the crew had been speculating for years about where they'd all go once Zuko abandoned his hopeless Avatar hunt. The royal harbor was infinitely less interesting than being on any ship, but Jee had resigned himself more or less from the start that this commission wouldn't last forever. It had been a joke to begin with.

But now that he was facing the actual possibility that it might be over, and soon, all he could think of was _not now _and _not yet___.

He had to solve this. He didn't want to go home and leave... all this. "Maybe General Iroh could find a way to tide us over, until this allowance business is cleared up."

Haisu shrugged. "Maybe. But in any case, we can't go to the South Pole right now. We'd need to spend every last copper sen of our savings on the gear alone, and we might not manage even then. Forget about that ice-proof plating."

Jee tugged at his sideburns. The plain ledger was starting to look more and more like a poisonous sorcerer's tome.

"Heng, you're going to talk to the prince soon, right? Before we get to Ishihama and he starts trying to buy things?"

"Yes, yes, I'll talk to him," Jee growled. That was clearly the first step towards solving... whatever this was. And it would probably be the single most appallingly unpleasant conversation of his entire life.

* * *

Jee was going to deal with the falsifying matter head on. It was clearly a massive, inescapable problem. He would wring an explanation out of Zuko the moment they were alone, and he wasn't going to let any amount of screaming or violence deter him.

He got his first chance when Zuko appeared in his cabin that evening. Somehow, the brat managed to be so quiet about it that he made Jee jump right out of his skin when a shadow suddenly fell over the log book. It took Jee a few seconds to save his papers from the candle he'd accidentally upended, and a few more to gather his wits enough to consider how to broach the subject. By then, Zuko had shrugged out of his clothes and was standing gloriously naked in the reddish lamp light. 

There was no way Jee could tell him to get dressed, because he didn't want to, and because he remembered all too well how easy it was to crush the budding confidence of someone that young, especially someone who'd been called ugly - whom _he_ had called ugly - so often. He reached out to put his hands on Zuko's hips and resolved to bring the topic up after sex, no matter how awkward that might turn out to be.

He forgot, and Zuko had left by the time Jee remembered his plan. The next day, then. 

Apparently Zuko had found Jee's reaction to being surprised very funny, because he did it again. Jee doused his lamp and went to sleep without having seen any sign of the prince the whole evening, and then he was jolted out of some strange dream about swirling water to the feeling of a mouth on his throat and fingers clutching his cock. 

Jee did recall the money thing, for a second, and he even managed to grab Zuko's shoulders and make a half-hearted attempt at pushing him away. But Zuko only tightened his grip and said " _What_ , Lieutenant," in that raspy voice that was half run-of-the-mill annoyance and half want, and then Jee forgot again. He'd never slept with anyone who actually called him by his rank while jerking him off. This was just one new experience after the other, wasn't it.

He managed to keep his mind on the problem the next evening, all the way through everything. By the time they were both sitting at opposite ends of the bed, panting and disheveled, Jee even remembered the perfect opening sentence he'd composed in his head earlier. Jee opened his mouth. 

Zuko took a long, dubious look at his own hand and licked along his palm, starting at the wrist and up until the tip of his tongue poked through his spread fingers. 

And then he made a horrible face and wiped his hand on the sheets, but he'd actually... By the time Jee managed to have coherent thoughts again around and over the image of that tongue lapping at pale skin, he just _couldn't_ say anything. There absolutely had to be some sort of spirit prohibition against ruining the evening of someone who'd just licked your come off his fingers.

He was determined not to let himself get distracted the next night. All he had to do was _concentrate_ and wait for the moment when Zuko would roll off the bed and pad out of the cabin. Then he could call the brat's name, and Zuko would stop and just stand there at a respectable distance being fully dressed and not touching Jee at all, and they could talk. 

When Zuko's hot breaths against his shoulder began to slow, Jee tensed up like a catapult operator waiting for his target to move just a _bit_ to the right. It was going to work. 

But instead of pushing away, Zuko put his head down. His hand rested on Jee's stomach, warm and heavy and damp, and he shifted on the bed as if he was actually settling in for the night, and Jee just _couldn't_. 

He'd almost fallen asleep by the time he got elbowed in the chest as Zuko climbed over him and left after all.

* * *

_**Note left on Lieutenant Jee's desk** _

_Heng, did you talk to him yet? He keeps banging around in the engine room and telling me about all sorts of preparations he wants me to make, and I don't know how to reply._

_Haisu_

_**Note left on Chan Haisu's desk** _

_He's hard to talk with. I tried to say something, but he doesn't listen._

_**Note left next to Lieutenant Jee's pillow** _

_Maybe he'll hear you better if you talk to his face instead of his cock. I know what you're like. You need to talk to him right now._

_**Note left on the corner of the mess table where Lieutenant Jee and Chan Haisu eat** _

_If you think it's that easy to have any sort of conversation with the damn brat, you're welcome to try._

_**Note left on the corner of the mess table where Lieutenant Jee and Chan Haisu eat** _

_What do you mean, Lieutenant? Did anything happen with Prince Zuko? I was just thinking he's been in such a good mood these past few days._

_General Iroh_

_**Note left on the corner of the mess table where General Iroh eats whenever he doesn't dine in Prince Zuko's cabin** _

_It's nothing, sir. The Lieutenant tried to say something to Prince Zuko, but I think it didn't come across because he was talking with his mouth full._

_Respectfully,_

_Haisu_

_**Note left under Lieutenant Jee's fifth cup of calming tea at dinner** _

_Lieutenant, I'm glad to hear you're still having meals with Prince Zuko. And thank you for being so helpful with the planning for our South Pole expedition, I can tell that your cooperation is doing wonders for my nephew's good humor. But do try not to teach him more bad manners than you can help. I find our men's crudity rather charming, and it does amuse me to see Prince Zuko imitate it. But at this rate, I despair of ever making him fit for a lady's company._

_General Iroh_

* * *

Zuko's nightly visiting pattern had become so familiar to Jee that he'd almost come to count upon it. He nearly fell over his own tripwire in surprise when he walked in after lunch to find Zuko sitting on his bed in broad daylight. 

It was a good thing he hadn't been picking or scratching any body parts. Jee coughed and sketched a bow. "Good afternoon, sir."

"Hello," Zuko said, in a tone of voice that Jee couldn't find a shred of antipathy or irritation in. None at _all_.

He'd clearly been in here for a while; the temperature in the cabin was quite balmy, a stark contrast to the sharp cold of the corridor that Jee had just crossed. Zuko was in his sleeveless training tunic, bare feet tucked under his legs. His boots were standing next to the bunk.

There was something wrapped in paper between the palms of his hands. It smelled distinctly oily, and a small pile of what looked like fried fish bones lay on a separate sheet of rice paper next to his thigh. The ones on the bottom were more black than anything else, but his more recent attempts looked a very nice golden brown.

Jee blinked. "Sir, are you... making bone crackers?"

"Yeah. Uncle wants me to do it for practice," Zuko said. He unfolded his hands to reveal another flat and golden fish skeleton, put it on the pile, and reached for a new fish somewhere behind him. "We worked on temperatures this morning. He thinks dosing the heat right to fry the bones without pulverizing them will help me get more control of how hot my flames burn."

Ah, at least that made more sense than Prince Zuko having taken up cookery of his own volition. "I see, sir. Practice firebending by making snacks that will be ready just by the time everyone gets hungry in the afternoon. Your esteemed uncle is a very creative teacher."

A snort. "Yeah."

This was a perfect opportunity to start the talk about the letters of credit, Jee realized. Zuko was perfectly calm, not too busy, and not annoyed or unhappy - not even as annoyed and unhappy as he always was no matter the circumstances. In fact, he sounded close to conversational. He was barely even frowning at all.

Ashes. For the brat, this greeting was probably the equivalent of a cheer and a hug. And he'd come by in the middle of the day, when they couldn't possibly get up to anything without risking discovery. Even now, the noise of boots running up and down the nearby stairway to the bridge was clearly audible through the wall. People often came knocking on Jee's door throughout the day to report unusual sights, or squabbles, or things that had broken down and would cost too much money to fix. Zuko knew that perfectly well.

He hadn't come here to have sex. The General had given the brat homework to keep him busy for the afternoon, and he'd come to do it here instead of hiding away in his own cabin. This was a _social_ visit. 

And here Jee was planning to ruin it completely. This was just great.

Another bone cracker emerged from the oiled paper Zuko was holding between his hands, burn pattern even and glistening gold. It smelled delicious. Zuko gave it a look of vague satisfaction and glanced at Jee.

"Do you eat bone crackers?"

"Yes, sir. I like them."

Zuko handed him the cracker he'd just roasted and stared pointedly at the free space next to him on the bed. "Sit down. Eat that and tell me if I did it right."

A cheer, a hug, and a long slow kiss with a lot of tongue. _Ashes._

"Thank you, sir." Jee gave up, sat down, and bit into the bone cracker. It was good and crisp. Not as salty as Jee was used to, but he supposed that after the blasted Water Tribe food, neither Zuko nor anybody else on board would want to eat more salt than absolutely necessary for at least three weeks.

"It's good, sir. If you add some spices, no one will know it wasn't Cook who made them. But how do you even know about bone crackers?"

Zuko seemed on the edge of smiling, for just a moment. 

"Why wouldn't I know about them?" He picked up the last raw fishbone by its tail, slapped it onto the frying paper, and folded his hands around it. 

"I'd have thought the cooks in the royal palace wouldn't dare to serve poor people's food, sir."

Zuko had his eyes almost closed and was clearly concentrating the fish in his hands. Small crackling sounds started to emerge from under the frying paper.

"What do you mean, poor people's food? We got them for treats sometimes. At the palace."

"Most people make bone crackers so they don't have to waste any part of a fish, sir. Not because they taste good."

"Oh," Zuko said after a short pause. "But they do taste good."

"If you make them properly, yes," Jee said. "Like that." 

He nodded at the last fish as Zuko unfolded his hands. This time, the quirk of the brat's lips was definitely not an accident.

Jee watched as Zuko tied the edges of the cloth together, made a neat package of his finished crackers, and leaned over to put it on the ground next to the bunk. Then he settled on the blankets with barely a hand's breadth of space between his thigh and Jee's. He smelled of fried fish, but not too unpleasantly so, and fried fish was one of the nicer smells that one could encounter on a coal-powered ship anyway.

Zuko closed his eyes and took a few deep, meditative breaths to settle his fire after long hours of training. The faint amount of chi that Jee could sense from this distance felt tired and warm, and tender with too much use. The brat looked entirely kissable. 

Jee squeezed his own eyes shut and desperately tried to think of his opening sentence. _Sir, I wanted to talk to you about something we noticed on our recent letters of credit..._

He took a deep breath, got as far as "Sir," and then found himself knocked flat on his back onto the bed. There was a solid weight straddling his stomach, and hot, strong fingers all over his head, carding through his hair and rubbing his scalp. 

Jee opened his mouth to say something and promptly inhaled a breathful of wonderfully not-his fire. It slid down his throat like slick hot syrup, and it was so delicious that he wanted to cry. 

With a groan of pleasure, Jee let his hands run up from Zuko's middle - how had they gotten there? - to the back of the brat's bald head, until his fingers bumped against the ponytail. He'd figured out how to unwind the ribbon a few days ago. The strip of red silk did a strange series of twists near the bottom, so ridiculously complicated that only some fanciful royal hairdresser with too much time on his hands could ever have come up with it. 

Jee grabbed the ponytail and dug under the base of it to find the edge of the tie. Zuko shook his head with a growl, but Jee tightened his grip, holding the brat in place with just a hint of force. 

" _Down_ ," he ordered before he'd had time to think about it.

He was rewarded with a deep whine as Zuko bucked his hips, grinding against Jee's stomach. The brat was hard, he almost had to be, but it was difficult to tell while there were still so many damned layers of clothes in the way. 

Messy curls of heat spilled from Zuko's lips into Jee's mouth and then down his jaw, ruffling his sideburns like gusts of air just on the edge of combusting. Zuko was as generous with his fire as he was stingy with any other sign of friendliness. He clearly hadn't had many other people to lavish this sort of attention upon, if he opened up to Jee so readily. It was unconscious, no doubt; the brat still lacked the control to keep his flame veiled and to himself. Or perhaps he just forgot to pay attention to it, which was about the same thing, really - control wasn't control if it slipped the moment you focused on something else. 

And he should really be listening to himself here. It was _not_ the middle of the night, there were people about, and they needed to talk.

Jee's fingers trembled against the rough stubble of Zuko's scalp as he struggled to make himself let go. He should take this chance while it was on offer. There was no way they'd get though a discussion about fraud and treachery without a fight, and it could easily turn so ugly that the brat decided to never go near Jee again. They'd had plenty of massive arguments over much smaller things than this. This could be his _last_ chance.

"Let's fuck, let's do it now," Zuko whispered, and Jee felt his fingers slip down the sweaty skin of the brat's throat, over the throbbing pulse below. _Yes, let's_ , his blood sang back.

No. It would be a deception, to accept his kisses and his willingly offered fire and maybe even more, and then turn on him as soon as he'd taken it all.

"Sir," Jee began. "Stop. I need to talk with you."

Zuko's hands curled into fists, and he made a hard sound against Jee's shoulder. It was a remarkably good imitation of that hissing growl the rhinos produced when they were about two seconds away from trying to gut someone.

With another sigh, Jee began pushing the brat's shoulders up. "Sir..."

The growling got louder.

"Sir, please. It's a matter of importance to our mission." He hated himself, he really did.

"Fine," Zuko muttered. He shoved himself up until he was sitting upright on Jee's stomach. Then he flopped backwards and landed on his bottom on the mattress, both legs still hooked over Jee's. 

He was glaring a little now, but his mouth was glistening wet, and the neat wrapping pattern of his hair tie was slowly collapsing in a long slide of red silk over dark hair. Zuko seemed to feel it; he shook his head irritably and reached back for the ponytail with both hands.

"Well? What is it?" 

Jee took a deep breath. He sat up himself and began to scoot backwards, both to get away from the weight of Zuko's thighs on his own and to buy some more time, but he didn't get far before the small of his back hit the bunk's railing. That took a second or two, so of course the brat started losing patience with him. 

"Lieutenant, what do you _want?_ " Zuko tugged the unraveling ribbon loose completely and began to wrap it around his fingers. He looked annoyed, but Jee could tell by the slow, warm swirl of the chi lingering between them that he wasn't truly angry. Just a kiss, or even a hand held out in invitation, and he'd go right back to sitting on top of Jee and fumbling with the ties of his armor with those strong fingers.

Jee dropped his eyes from Zuko's face to red silk in his hands.

"Sir, have you been changing the numbers on our letters of credit from the capital?"

The hair tie snapped taut between Zuko's fingers.

"No!" 

By the stinking remains of all the dead Earth Kings rotting in the ground, he'd really done it.

"Sir, somebody tampered with those letters," Jee told the silk-wrapped fingers. They were trembling. "I'm responsible for running this ship, and I need to know if there's a problem with our finances. Could you please tell me what's going on?"

The swirling warmth between them had disappeared as if someone had doused it in water. It was hard to keep from shivering as cold air rushed to fill its place.

"I did _not_ ," Zuko insisted. Jee almost looked at his face, but he couldn't bring himself to. "There's nothing going on!"

How had he survived at the royal court? "Sir..."

"I _didn't!_ "

The sudden shrillness in his voice finally made Jee look up. Zuko seemed too shocked to be actively panicking, but his good eye had gone so wide that Jee could see white all around the iris. 

"Sir..." _I'm sorry._ "If it wasn't actually you, I'll need to tell General Iroh so we can start an investiga..."

"No, don't tell him!"

One more try. "Sir. Then please tell _me_ what's going on. I'm responsible for the wellbeing of twenty-one people, yourself included. All your men need to eat, and they need to be paid, and we need to be able to keep this ship in good condition so it doesn't become a danger to all of us. If you know anything about problems with..."

"Nothing's wrong." Zuko shook his head so hard that his neck looked likely to snap. "It'll be fixed. I'll fix it. It's nothing you need to concern yourself with, Lieutenant."

Jee grit his teeth and frowned as sternly as he could. Enough with this waffling.

"Sir, with all due respect, this _is_ something I need to be concerned about! You're our commander. If you're caught cheating Fire Nation money changers, you won't just be punished! You'll lose your ship, and bring dishonor on all of your men so no one will want to employ them again!"

Zuko reared backwards as if Jee had taken a swing at him. His bare toes knocked against Jee's stiff boots, hard enough that he hissed in pain.

" _What!?_ No. No! I didn't trick the royal treasury into giving me more! That would be _treason!_ " 

He was actually leaning back over the railing at the other end of the bunk. If he tried to get any further away from Jee, he'd tip over the metal bar and land head first on the floor. 

Jee held up his hands, startled.

"Then what did you do?" He nearly grabbed for Zuko's rumpled tunic, then thought better of it. "Sir?"

"Don't tell my uncle!"

"Sir, all right, but if General Iroh needs to..."

Zuko lunged forward so suddenly that Jee almost fell back off _his_ end of the bed.

" _Don't tell him!_ "

"Understood, sir. I won't." Not involving the most rational person on this whole ship wasn't the kind of promise Jee wanted to make, but he obviously wasn't going to get a useful word out of Zuko otherwise.

"Swear it on your honor," Zuko insisted.

Jee nodded, shifted into a slightly more dignified position on his knees, and brought his hands together in the shape of the flame. 

"I swear I'll keep your secrets, on my honor as a soldier of the Fire Nation. Sir." Not that his honor was worth much more than that of his left slipper, but even General Iroh agreed that he had some left to work with. At least more than Zuko, who the whole world seemed to agree had absolutely none, even if Jee still didn't know how or why.

When he looked up again, Zuko was staring down at his own hands. He'd settled on his haunches instead of sitting down properly. Jee wondered if he was planning to flee, or launch himself forward in some sort of attack.

But Zuko only took a deep breath. 

"I didn't try to cheat anyone Fire Nation," he murmured. "I changed the letters afterwards. After I went to the money changers, but before I gave everything to the first mate."

"You were hiding this from _us_?" Jee waited until Zuko looked up. "I mean, that our allowance changed?"

Zuko didn't say anything.

"Why, sir?" Zuko just stared at him, and Jee realized that he probably had to be a little more specific than that. "I mean, why did our allowance change?"

"It's a mistake," Zuko muttered. "Someone in Caldera wrote the letters wrong. I'll get it fixed."

He was lying. Jee took a deep breath through his nose and pushed down the angry flames curling in his stomach. He'd come at it from a different angle, give Zuko one more chance to confess on his own. He didn't _want_ to strong-arm the brat into talking, but...

"Sir. You gave the first mate a hundred and eighty in the last four months, like always. Where did you get the extra gold?"

Zuko stiffened. His glower turned blatantly hostile. "It's none of your concern, Lieutenant! I told you I'm taking care of it! And I order you to shut up about this _now_."

He twisted off the bed with a furious jerk of his legs, stalked away a few paces until the cabin's single chair got in his way, and then turned to glare down his nose at Jee. He'd never looked more like the snotty, entitled brat he was.

So that was how it was going to be, then. Very well. Jee considered exactly how much Zuko might like him by now, and how mad he might get if Jee punched right into the sorest, most vulnerable part of him.

He decided to risk it. 

"Don't lie. Whatever you did, making it worse by lying about it is _dishonorable_. Dishonorable and unworthy of a prince," Jee said, loud and clear. "Tell me where you got that money."

Zuko snarled. It was impossible to tell if it was out of rage or shock, or both.

"I stole it, all right?!"

"You just said you didn't cheat the money changers," Jee snapped. 

Zuko balled his fists and spit a gust of flame at the ceiling. It was strangely thin and shaky, nothing like the fireballs he usually produced when angry.

"I took it from some Earth Kingdom houses in ports! I'd never steal from my father's treasury!"

Jee blinked. He'd taken it from...

"You went _thieving_?"

"I picked rich houses. They won't miss the money," Zuko muttered.

Jee knew he was gaping like an idiot, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't possibly be hearing what he was hearing. The Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, sneak around ports and break into houses? 

He had to be lying again. That sort of thing just didn't happen.

"You don't know how to steal!"

Tendrils of smoke escaped Zuko's nostrils. He started to bounce his foot, kicking his heel back against the chair as if he was warming up for a physical fight.

"I know perfectly well how, I _practiced_ ," he bit out. 

Then the bouncing foot froze for just a moment. Zuko's one good cheek flared bright red, and Jee knew that he'd just been given a hint about something that the brat had _not_ meant to divulge. He was so utterly miserable at self control, it was a wonder he ever managed to meditate at all.

What had he said? He practiced...

The thief. The thief who'd been ghosting over Jee's tripwire. The thief he'd been looking for for _months_ , interrogating every man in the crew and making them all miserable and suspicious of each other. 

Every man except for Prince Zuko and General Iroh, because of _course_ royalty would not stoop to such an utterly vulgar sort of crime. The little shit must have been laughing behind Jee's back this whole time. Jee stared at Zuko's red face and wondered if the brat actually took time every day to sit down and deliberately think up new ways to humiliate him. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized that he wouldn't have been nearly as angry if this had happened months ago. He hadn't had any expectations of Zuko then. But now it _stung_. He'd thought...

He'd welcomed the brat into his home and his bed, and Zuko had let himself in and stolen things.

" _You_."

Jee got to his feet without bothering to think of a plan for what he was going to do once he got hold of the brat. So many possibilities. He could simply throttle him until he begged for mercy, or spank his royal ass until he couldn't sit for a month, or drag him up to deck and tie a rope around his feet and dunk his ugly lying face into the icy sea...

Zuko's eyes popped wide open; then he threw his head back, and Jee only got a split second to wonder what that was supposed to accomplish before his advance was stopped by a _vicious_ kick in the chest. 

It knocked all the air straight out of him. He tried to inhale, and then another heel slammed into his breastbone, and he was falling back onto the bunk in a graceless sprawl. The clattering of a falling chair ricocheted around the cabin.

The sharp pain in his chest made it hard to even move, let alone sit up, but Jee grit his teeth against it and pushed himself up with a vehemence that he knew he was going to regret later. 

The chair was down and Zuko was on his feet behind it, rising from a crouch. The brat had just gone from standing still to backflipping over the damned chair, and he'd used Jee's chest as a launching pad. Jee would have been impressed if he'd been able to breathe properly. Or if he'd been any less furious. 

"You," he wheezed. "Did _you_ steal my things?"

Zuko clamped his lips together. His whole bald head seemed to be blushing; there were waves of irregular, panicky heat rolling off him.

Jee shook his head. It didn't make him feel any better. His chest still hurt, and Zuko was still standing there looking beet red and being a filthy _thief_.

"You..." It had been a long time since he'd last been this thoroughly lost for words. _That_ was the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, robbing his own men and breaking into houses and forging official documents. No wonder they'd kicked him out of Caldera and wanted him out of the line of succession. That lying little monster.

He'd done everything he could to give the kid every possible reason to trust him. He'd let him in. He'd taken off his clothes and closed his eyes and let every inch of his scarred, not-young body be poked and prodded, just so the brat could experiment and explore what another man felt like. He'd talked to him. He'd been kind. And this was how he got repaid?

Zuko still didn't protest, or deny, or say a word at all. He just stood there, with this _stupid_ look on his mess of a face that could be anything from shame to confusion to amusement at Jee's anger.

Jee didn't want all this to have been a huge mistake. He didn't. He'd been having fun, he'd been enjoying teaching the brat. He'd liked...

"You're the _Crown Prince_!" he finally exclaimed. "Why would you steal from your own men?"

_Please have an explanation for this._

"It was just some little things. I needed to practice," Zuko said. His voice was thin.

"By stealing from your own men?" Jee didn't bother to bite down on the harsh fire he could feel bubbling up in his throat. "For someone who goes on about honor day and night, you aren't very good at it, _sir_." 

Now Zuko bared his teeth in a furious hiss, all embarrassment seemingly forgotten. He raised one hand. Not an attack, not quite a challenge, but it could become one in the blink of an eye, and Jee felt fire leap into his hands in response.

"If you speak one more word to me, Lieutenant..."

For a moment, Jee considered that if he'd dared say what he just said half a year ago, Zuko would already be firebending at him by now instead of trying to snarl him into obedience. He was too far gone to feel pleased with this progress, though. 

If the little bastard thought that Jee was in any way afraid of him, he could bury that idea wherever he'd hidden the rotten shreds of his precious honor. Jee stood up and matched the stance of almost-challenge.

"I wasn't finished, _sir_. You bring dishonor on yourself with this behavior! You dishonor your esteemed uncle, and everyone else who raised you to be better than this!" Jee took a step closer. "You dishonor your crew! Everything you do reflects on this whole ship! We work hard for you and follow you into any danger, and you repay us by stealing from us!"

"It was just some stupid spoons and brushes!"

That was true. Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe...

"You _stole._ On a ship. From your own shipmates!"

Zuko made a furious chopping gesture with both hands. "Yes, I did! And? I didn't even throw the junk overboard, it's all in the hold! I'll put it back, okay?"

Jee growled. The brat couldn't possibly be this dense. " _That doesn't matter_. Theft, _sir_ , is one of the worst things you can do on a ship! A crew needs to be able to trust each other, at all times, or people will die!" He shook his head furiously as he remembered why they were having this mad conversation in the first place. "And you can't falsify official documents either! What is _wrong_ with you!? Don't you have any shame? You're the Crown Prince!"

He'd almost _trusted_...

Zuko took a very deliberate step closer, mouth open in a snarl. There was an alarming yellow glow in the back of his throat.

"If you have a problem with your Crown Prince, Lieutenant, then challenge me!"

Jee looked him up and down and deliberately relaxed his own stance, dropping his hands to his sides.

"Agni Kai are honor duels for men. Not thieving brats," he spat. "You don't deserve an Agni Kai, you deserve to have the skin beaten off your ass."

 _He's going to kill me_ , Jee thought as he watched Zuko's mouth fall open. There went any chance of solving anything tonight, or ever. The brat would kill him, or at least make a good try of it and get him thrown off the ship first chance he got. 

He should have taken that fuck.

Zuko just stood there and gaped. The angry flush on his face was retreating; his eyes had gone wide and bright, and he was trembling, as if he couldn't decide whether he wanted to hurt Jee or just cry from sheer anger.

When he still hadn't been attacked or screamed at after what felt like the whole afternoon had gone by, Jee began to wonder. Had the brat actually realized that he was in the wrong, and that he deserved whatever he got? Was that _shame_ he was seeing?

Only one way to find out. If he was ashamed, he should be prepared to put this right. Jee should be able to scare him into talking. Asking nicely clearly wasn't going to work.

He stalked over to his sea chest and jerked the lid open. "Do you know how the Navy punishes thieves aboard ship, _sir_?" He pushed aside old logs and piles of winter clothes until his fingers closed over the handle of his captain's lash, then stood up to shake the instrument in Zuko's direction. 

"We call the whole crew out to deck to watch, and then we strip the thief naked to the waist. Then everyone he stole from can give him twelve counts of _this_."

He threw the lash at the wall. It bounced off the iron barely a hand's breadth away from Zuko's ear, and the brat jumped as if he'd been slapped.

It felt _good_ to see him startle, but this was still an idle threat if there ever was one. Zuko had far more authority to have Jee beaten for insolence than Jee had to have Zuko undergo any sort of punishment whatsoever.

Which the brat seemed to be realizing as well. He bared his teeth.

"You have no right to do _anything_ to me," he hissed. There was a low, dull crackle of almost-born fire at the back of the words. "I am your prince."

Jee sneered back. Of course. It figured that he'd pull rank instead of offer to take a deserved punishment standing up. That would have been the _honorable_ thing to do.

"No, sir, I don't have any right. You're entirely correct," Jee replied. If the brat still refused to fucking well _explain_ himself, Jee would just have to twist his arm more. He stalked over to his desk and pulled an old paper and coal stick towards him, not bothering with the chair on the floor. "I suppose I'll just go by the book and report you to the regional officer in command, then."

The little color that was left on Zuko's face disappeared in a heartbeat.

"What? You can't do that!"

He sounded as furious as only Zuko could ever be. There was a strange lack of heat in the air, though. Jee had had countless fights with the brat before, some of them indoors, and he was very used to what amount of wild fire accompanied what level of royal indignation and anger. Zuko should have been turning this metal box into a cooker right about now. He _never_ managed to keep his fire down and in. 

Jee, however, had learned the importance of veiling his flame from a great deal of nasty personal experience. It was never a good idea to let a firebending commander notice when you were mad enough to weep from it.

"Oh, I can definitely do that. Watch me, _sir._ " Jee put the coal stick to paper. " _Honored Captain Zhao..._ "

"No! He'll tell my father, he'll tell everyone!"

Zuko's voice cracked throughout the sentence like splintering wood, so drawn out and so painfully that Jee winced.

But he couldn't give up now that he finally had the brat scared. Just a little push...

"If you won't explain your dishonorable behavior, sir, you leave me no choice." Jee didn't take his eyes from the paper and continued to draw nonsense characters that he knew Zuko wouldn't be able to read from this distance. _Come on, you little bastard, just start talking..._

"NO!"

The movement in his peripheral vision was swift and unmistakable. A bender dropping into the aggressive archer stance that was ideal for launching a swift, hard fireball. 

Too fast to block at such a short distance. _Dodge._ Without thinking, Jee pulled his hands out of the way of the flame that was about to engulf the paper. Knowing Zuko, probably the whole desk, best get away even further - he began to step backwards just as Zuko's fist punched forward.

Nothing happened.

Jee nearly stumbled as he put down the foot he'd been lifting. Zuko was standing perfectly, crouched and firmly rooted, shoulders back, one fist against his ribcage and the other extended, and there was _nothing_. Not even a wisp of smoke.

_What?_

Zuko stared down his outstretched arm, eyes bright with shock. There were goosebumps all over his forearm. The room wasn't just cold, now; it was absolutely freezing. 

Jee could see breath misting in front of his face as he began to inhale and exhale, slowly and deliberately, feeling for all sources of fire in the vicinity. The echo of the small, steady hearts of the lamps on the wall bounced back towards him at once. Under his feet, the floor felt alive with the presence of firebenders in the wardroom below - Lin Ming, and Haisu, and a weaker third whom Jee couldn't immediately identify, moving about with a fourth fire spinning between them at top speed. He could hear them laughing. All off watch and playing a game, good, they wouldn't have heard Zuko yelling if they were busy crashing into the walls themselves. Another deep breath, and Jee refined his search, feeling for the smaller sparks jumping inside his lamp and the tiny flames of the candles in the wardroom. And there was the General's steady hearthfire, on the bridge two levels above. Then another breath, and he could even feel the contained inferno of the faraway main engine thrumming against the edge of his senses.

The spot where Zuko was standing not two steps away was like a deep well of cold, dark water.

Jee felt his eyes widen. The last time he'd seen a firebender terrified enough to snuff out his own flame had been... The last time it had happened to himself, wasn't it?

He'd looked down into a massive sinkhole where there had been only flat earth before, the rock edge crumbling under his toes and screams of his name ringing in his ears - screams from behind him, from right next to him, and nothing, _nothing_ from below - and realized that they'd seen him. They'd seen him and he was going to die for what he'd just done, and he'd _done it_. They were going to kill him, burn him to cinders and take days to do it, and they were going to burn poor Haisu who'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there was no escape because they were already right behind him. At that moment, he'd felt his fire bleed out of him along with all his courage. He'd never been more afraid in his entire life.

Jee forced himself to return to the present. It was over and done, he wasn't dead, and he could do nothing for those who were.

Zuko was still frozen in his bending stance, but his breathing was beginning to come faster. Even all the way from where he was standing, Jee could feel cold, sick chi straining against the brat's skin from the inside.

"Sir..." Jee put the coal stick he was still holding down on the desk, slowly. He hadn't meant to do this. What on earth had he said to frighten blasted _Zuko_ this badly? "Sir. Close your eyes and take slow breaths. Deep breaths. You're just blocking your own chi paths. You're fine, it will pass."

Zuko still hadn't blinked. He unclenched his fist, finger by shaking finger.

"You worked on temperature control all morning with your esteemed uncle, didn't you?" Jee went on, keeping his voice as steady and reassuring as he could. "Your chi paths are just tired, sir. You put too much pressure on them." _And someone pushed you._

"I know, I..." His breath hitched. "I know I'm fine, I..."

With stiff, jerky motions, he began to stand up straight again. He looked so white and cold that by all rights, he should be on his back on the floor. Jee held up his hands and tensed the muscles in his legs. If Zuko actually keeled over, he'd have to rush to catch him in time.

Zuko looked up. 

"Don't report me." It was barely more than a breath.

"Sir, I just need you to tell me the truth about what's going on here. So we can fix it. I wasn't really going to..."

"My father will hear if you report me," Zuko interrupted, only a little louder but much faster. "I'll take the lashing. Whatever you want, just don't report me!" 

Jee blinked. " _What?_ "

Still with those fast, jerky motions, Zuko bent down and snatched the lash from the floor. Then he walked over and pushed the end of the handle at Jee's chest.

"I brought dishonor on you," he said. It sounded like he was talking in broken glass instead of a human voice. "I brought dishonor on the whole ship. You're right. I admit it. I admit it, okay?" His single eyebrow was trembling. He looked like even his face was hurting from the cold, and he... "Can you do it in here? Not on deck? So Uncle doesn't find out?"

He'd gone completely mad.

"You're crazy," Jee said. "I'm not going to whip you."

"But you just said..." Zuko's eyes widened again. "Don't report me!"

Jee shook his head. It didn't make Zuko, or the lash, disappear.

"I don't want to hit you!" Jee took a step back from the end of the handle. It felt like it might plunge right through his armor and into his chest at any moment. "I... spoke in anger, sir. I wouldn't do such a thing." How could the little monster possibly take that seriously? Had Jee ever given him a reason to think he might actually beat someone bloody over anything?

Zuko tilted his head. "Why not?"

He looked genuinely curious. That was... Jee had no idea if he was insulted or terrified, or both. 

But maybe he could keep the brat talking and distracted from his sudden lack of fire. Keep him calm, that was the best thing to do right now.

"Sir, I was just... being mad." Jee tried to sound like he wasn't speaking to a crazy person. "A good captain always avoids the lash unless there's absolutely no other way to solve a situation."

"Lashing is an official Fire Navy punishment. It's in the Naval Code," Zuko said, still in that hideous tone of honest interest.

Jee scratched at his sideburns. He hadn't pegged Zuko for the kind of officer who'd consider it normal to actually use the lash. Even with all the provocation that some of the men had given him over the last few years, the brat had never even mentioned it. 

"Yes, sir, but... It's cruel. And pointless. Only sadists think that torturing someone is public is good for anything."

Zuko stared at him. His lone eyebrow began to curl down, very, very slowly.

"But it's allowed. People do it."

"It's still allowed, sir, but we're a modern Navy now. We've had more than enough time to figure out what works for keeping order, and what doesn't. We know that things like lashing are useless as punishment for small offenses." 

Zuko blinked, but didn't say anything. Jee shifted from one leg to the other uncomfortably.

"Sir, the Naval Code says you're allowed to strip a man in front of his fellows and give him twelve counts of the lash if he has a bad day and looks at an officer wrong. But what do you accomplish with that?" 

"Teach him a lesson," Zuko whispered.

Tsk. "Sir, nobody who got that kind of punishment for a trifle ever learned anything. It only turns good men bad, and bad men worse."

Zuko looked him straight in the eyes for a few more heartbeats, as if he wasn't quite sure Jee wasn't having him on. Then he dropped his eyes to the lash and seemed to consider it in earnest.

"How much does it hurt?"

"Plenty. Put it down now," Jee said. He didn't want Zuko holding it. Something told him that the brat was just crazy enough to take his shirt off, turn around, and order Jee to demonstrate.

Zuko ignored him. He started running the leather strips between his fingers, as if he was combing his hair.

"It doesn't feel like it should hurt much."

"It hurts," Jee snapped. "Believe me, sir. Put it on the desk."

He didn't. Zuko gave the knots at the ends a few experimental tugs before looking up again. 

"Have you ever whipped anyone?"

"A few times, sir. When I was a mate on ships before this one, and it was captain's orders." Jee fought the urge to just snatch the instrument from Zuko's hands, throw it back into his sea chest, and sit on the lid. "I've never ordered a lashing myself."

"What did those people do?"

"One man got drunk and almost killed another over a game of dice," Jee said. "A few did things that endangered the whole ship. There was a sailor who fell asleep on his watch several times, and a stoker who was so drunk he overloaded a boiler and caused it to explode. Very bad things like that."

There was a long, heavy silence. 

"How do you punish someone if they disrespect you?"

Jee scratched his sideburns again, just to give his itching fingers something to do. "What do you mean, sir?"

"Like... If they speak out of turn. For example."

There was a strangely flat, distant quality to Zuko's tone that made Jee pause. That sounded like some kind of trick question. A test. 

Jee frowned. Of what? "That's... usually not something I bother punishing people for, sir. I just tell them to shut up."

Zuko seemed to consider him for a few moments. The uncharacteristically neutral look on his face matched his voice - careful, probing. 

"But what if they do it in a really disrespectful way?"

"Do you mean... like if they question my orders, sir?"

Zuko nodded. He was turning the lash in his hands, over and over, so that the tails tumbled and brushed over his bare forearms. Jee tried not to stare at that too hard. 

"Yeah. Something like that."

"I tell them do as they're told, sir," Jee said. "Or if they're questioning the order for a good reason, I change it and pretend it was my own idea."

"No more than that?"

The questioning was starting to get on Jee's nerves. This was _definitely_ a test of some sort, but for the life of him, he couldn't think what about. It sounded like the brat was trying to gauge exactly how vicious a captain Jee was, but he'd never shown any interest in how the crew got handled before. Anything was fine so long as everyone obeyed, was the general impression Jee had always gotten from him.

"It depends on the circumstances and the person, sir. If they just talk back at me and they're too rude about it, sometimes I yell at them and put them on the latrines roster until they remember that what I say goes."

"You don't hit them?"

"If... they're questioning orders in the middle of a dangerous situation, I might punch them, sir." Jee bit his tongue to keep from growling in annoyance. "Sir, is there something you want to know?"

Zuko ignored him. "And how do you punish a coward? Someone who won't fight? The Naval Code says you can whip someone for cowardice."

His blank facade was starting to crumble a little. He was starting to look curious again, but in a wary sort of way, as if he expected to hear something bad any moment.

"You're hardly likely to encounter that sort of problem with this crew, sir. They're all experienced soldiers." Jee wasn't quite sure precisely who the youngest on board was after Zuko. Bao, Shi, and Lin Wei were definitely closer to thirty than to twenty, though, and even they had been in quite a few real battles. Jee had never had any trouble convincing them to jump into a fight. Making them stop, now that was hard.

"So what do you do if it's someone who's not experienced? Some young soldier who refuses to fight?"

Jee sighed. "Half of all new recruits freeze up and piss their pants when an earthbender charges at them for the first time. I just make sure they don't die and then yell their stupid heads off until they feel better. Sir, is this going somewhere?"

Zuko's frown tightened a little, but not nearly as much as Jee would have expected. 

At least he didn't look about to panic anymore. And his fire was recovering now that he wasn't busy being scared. Jee still couldn't sense more than a hint of flame from him, but there was something now. Good. The brat would have been impossible - even more than usual - if his fire had deserted him for days.

"I'm just wondering why you wouldn't whip them. It's allowed."

"The lash isn't for anything like that, sir. We're not barbarians anymore. Today, we give our men punishments in proportion with what they did wrong." Jee knew he was starting to sound testy. But what did the brat expect when he was just assuming that Jee might turn into some sort of brute the moment one of his men stepped out of line? "You don't torture someone in front of his fellows for a spot of insolence. Or for being scared during their first battle." 

Something _raw_ passed over Zuko's face, as if all the skin was suddenly gone and everything underneath was naked and bleeding. 

Jee had already averted his before he'd even registered how badly he wanted to recoil from... whatever that look was he'd just seen.

He shook his head, hard. "Was that enough information, sir? Can we talk about how to solve this money issue now?"

Zuko crossed his arms. He was still holding the lash, but now it looked like he was cradling it to his chest like one might an infant. It was such a disconcerting sight that Jee nearly opened his mouth to try and make him put that horrible thing down again.

Something told him that he shouldn't interrupt Zuko's thinking right now, though. He was getting better at telling the brat's actual expression from whatever the scar warped it into. There was confusion there, and disbelief, and an intense, creepy sort of _hope_ , all trying to show but staying thoroughly pinned down by that ferociously ugly red scowl.

Now that Jee was aware there was a struggle going on behind the mark, it was half fascinating and half embarrassing to observe it up close in all its raging futility. The feeling reminded him a little of when he'd been learning to harpoon-fish as a boy. For a few days, at the start, he'd been utterly transfixed by how things kept trying to fight even as he had them skewered and stuck to the deck of his mother's tiny boat. Once he'd tried twisting the harpoon in a turtle-crab to see how its wiggling would change, but his mother had boxed him around the ears and told him to treat his food with respect.

The brat had to be feeling the tug of the gnarled skin every time he moved a muscle. Jee wondered what it was like to have your face fight back whenever you were trying to communicate something.

Finally, Zuko seemed to settle on that carefully not-angry expression that he'd been gracing Jee with more and more often in the past few days. It wasn't much, but just a few minutes ago, Jee had been sure he'd never see the brat look at him with anything but loathing again.

"Are you going to turn me in to Zhao?"

" _No_ , sir. Of course not," Jee sighed. "Sir. Tell me what's going on. I'm not hitting you and I'm not reporting you, because I want to help." He held up his hands. "I promised to help. Remember?"

The slight jerk of Zuko's head could almost be a nod.

"Sir, have I done anything to make you think you can't trust me with this?" 

Zuko's fingers tightened on the handle of the lash, so hard that Jee imagined he could hear the old leather creak.

Then the instrument dropped onto the desk with a dull thud. "No," Zuko said, quite softly. 

He walked over to his boots, still standing next to the bed, and reached into one of them. His hand emerged with the cylinder of a tightly rolled-up hawk message. He passed it over to Jee very quickly, as if he didn't want to give himself time to reconsider.

Jee took it and read the broken seals for the sender and intended recipient. The Bureau of the Royal Household, and... 

"This is addressed to your esteemed uncle, sir. Why do you have it?"

"It came together with our letter of credit four months ago." Zuko crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I was the one who caught the hawk. Nobody saw there were two message scrolls."

The scroll was only as wide and thick as Jee's pointing finger, but it had a strange phantom weight. Jee didn't move to open it.

"You're supposed to call a hawk handler when you see a bird coming. If you catch it wrong and hurt it, it might fly off again."

"Pikeman Shi showed me how to handle a message hawk. I thought I'd practice," Zuko groused, with a hint of his usual malcontent at the whole world. "I caught it just fine, didn't I?"

"Yes, sir," Jee conceded. "Why didn't you give this message to you esteemed Uncle?"

Zuko's good cheek colored a little. "I was going to! But then I looked at the letter of credit, and..." He threw both hands in the air. "Will you just read it already?"

"Yes, yes. Sir," Jee mumbled as he unrolled the letter with a silent apology to the General.

_His Royal Highness Prince-General Iroh_

_May Agni grant you a bountiful life of a hundred and thirty years._

_I write to humbly remind you that on the sixteenth day of the tenth month of this year, you will be officially relieved of responsibility to provide guidance and instruction to your ward, His Royal Highness Prince Zuko, as he will reach his majority on that day. His Royal Majesty Fire Lord Ozai, may his reign be blessed with glory and great harvests, would like to convey his appreciation of your voluntary acceptance of this task. The royal household looks forward to being able to rejoice in your company and good counsel once again._

_May I please ask you to inform Prince Zuko that starting from the seventh month of the sixth year of the Suiseirei Era, being now, the allowance he receives for his quest to find the Avatar will be lowered by ten golden sen every month, successively. Fire Lord Ozai hopes that this change will inspire Prince Zuko to become more resourceful and diligent in his efforts, so that he may soon restore his honor, as he was tasked to do already thirty months ago. Fire Lord Ozai trusts that Prince Zuko will come to understand how his continued failure to find the Avatar is taxing the Fire Nation's finances and reputation at a time of war, and learn to provide for himself independently instead of relying on the generosity of the people of his nation._

_I would be greatly obliged if you could inform me of the port in which you will be residing in in four months, so that I may arrange for your timely and comfortable transportation back to Caldera._

_With all my prayers for your good health and prosperity,_

_Royal Treasurer Rin Gozen_

__

It took Jee a quick re-read to fully grasp the meaning of all that, and even then, he wasn't sure. He looked up to find that Zuko had moved a few steps towards the desk. He was leaning on it with both hands, eyes closed and face half turned away.

Jee shook his head at the letter and said the first thing that came to mind. "Sir, is your esteemed uncle _leaving_?"

"I don't know," Zuko murmured. "He must know he's allowed to go now that I'm of age, even without the letter, but he hasn't _said_..."

Jee shook his head. "Sir, I can't imagine why your uncle would ever want to leave."

Zuko was prodding something on the desk with his finger. Judging by the location, it was probably the hand print he'd left in the wood days ago.

"He might want to leave. He's old. And there's nothing for him here." Zuko flattened his hand on the desk and twisted his arm a bit, as if he was trying to fit his fingers over the older impression. "I'd want to go home, if I were him."

Jee thought of how fiercely General Iroh had defended the brat during their talk in the galley, and concluded once again that Zuko's talent for being a clueless moron was truly without peer.

"Sir, your uncle is very happy to be here. He'd never leave. Believe me."

Zuko huffed. "He's happy with the food."

"Not just the food, sir."

"What do _you_ know?"

Nothing, apparently. Time to drop this topic. A pointless dissection of everything Zuko didn't understand about his uncle wasn't where this conversation needed to go.

Jee crackled the paper in his fingers loud enough to make Zuko look sideways in his direction. "Sir... Our allowance has gotten lower, and it's going to get even worse?" 

" _Yes_ , Lieutenant. I was told you can read," Zuko snapped. There was little heat behind it, though, and Jee had already heard so much insanity tonight that one little insult barely felt like a pinprick.

He thought of all the constant, neverending trouble that they'd gone through to make do with their pitiful allowance - the shoddy repair work, the tight shifts they had to run because every single man was vital and there was no money for more crew, always having to buy the oldest sacks of rice and the toughest meat that the _real_ Navy ships wouldn't take.

"Sir," he said. "This is simply impossible. A hundred and eighty has always been _barely_ sufficient to keep this ship running safely. We're already working with a reduced crew, and the only reason we manage is because you and your esteemed uncle chip in with the work. We can only afford essential repairs, we can't replace old equipment..."

"I know," Zuko said. He was leaning on the desk more heavily now, head so low that his shoulders were on the same level as his ears.

The brat didn't _get_ how bad this was. "Sir, you must protest this! To tell you to run a ship with less than a hundred and eighty is madness."

Zuko shot him a flat, tired glare. At least he wasn't turning his scar towards Jee this time, so there was actually an expression to look at.

"The letter said I have to be more resourceful, not that I'm obliged to run a ship with less than a hundred and eighty. I just need to make up the difference so we still have enough."

Jee shook his head. "Sir, whatever you do, it's irresponsible to leave your finances in such uncertainty every month. You have to protest this. I don't know what this royal treasurer was thinking, sir, but she clearly doesn't understand anything about what a vessel like this needs. It's your duty to object, the people on this ship depend on you to provide..."

A loud bang resounded through the cabin as both of Zuko's fists slammed onto the desk.

"No! I won't protest the will of my father. The will of your Fire Lord, Lieutenant!" The look on Zuko's face was fiercely angry. "I'll do what I have to do, and I _won't_ beg for leniency."

Jee grit his teeth and reminded himself that grabbing Zuko by the neck and shaking him until he turned blue wouldn't be a solution of any sort. You could get court-martialed for that sort of thing.

"Sir, this is about the safety of your men, not your pride!"

Zuko opened his mouth, hissed - and then seemed to choke on something. His eyes popped open almost comically wide before he dissolved into a fit of coughing. It looked like he'd tried to spit flame, but his recovering fire hadn't produced more than a blast of hot air.

"It's not about my _pride_ ," he finally managed. "Watch your mouth, Lieutenant."

"My apologies, sir," Jee sighed.

Zuko glared at him, still coughing, and Jee glared back. Damn the brat. Why had Jee promised him not to talk to the General? Why? There was _nothing_ more urgent than talking to the General about all of this.

Perhaps there was a loophole in his vow somewhere. He could think on it later. Right now, he needed to untangle this mess as quickly and thoroughly as possible so he could do at least basic damage control and make sure it didn't get worse.

"All right," he said, holding up a hand. "All right. But sir, you'll lose your ship if this keeps up. There's just not enough money."

"I am _not_ giving up this ship," Zuko said. "I'll fend for myself."

"How, sir? You can't just keep stealing money." Did Zuko have anything he could sell, or a skill to market? Jee couldn't think of anything the brat had anyone in their usual ports of call might give him a lot of money for. Well, except for his... 

Dear spirits, that was the most horrible thought he'd ever had and he deserved to be castrated on the spot. There was definitely no way he was going to imagine this scenario in more detail the next time he was alone in his bed.

Zuko looked like he was gritting his teeth against something. He shook his head hard enough to make his hair fly about, and he was slumped down so far now that he was almost bent over the desk, and Jee did _not_ picture how that might look if he did it in the back room of some disreputable sailor's tavern.

"I'll figure something out! A permanent solution. I just... need some time."

His voice was turning tight and hoarse, far more than an irritated throat would cause. He didn't look well.

Jee narrowed his eyes. Was the kid sick? He got up from the mattress, righted the fallen chair, and put it down close to the bed. "Sir, come and sit down. We'll talk."

Zuko glanced to the side. He looked like he didn't have the strength to protest.

"All right. Fine." A shaky sigh, and then he stumbled over and sank down into the chair, leaning heavily on the arm rests. Jee concentrated and reached out with his fire. The thick, piercing cold of fear was dissipating from under Zuko's skin. The flame in his gut was still weak, though, as if something was keeping it from growing.

"Sir, deep breaths. You need more air." Jee sat back down on the bunk, close enough that he'd be able to touch Zuko's knee. "Would you like a drink?"

"Fine," Zuko repeated.

Jee groped for the bottle of paint stripper under his bed and almost got up to find the cups, then remembered that they were under the bed too. He'd started keeping them within easy reach for when Zuko visited. 

"Here you go, sir." 

He pushed a half-full cup into Zuko's hands and gave him the time to take a few sips.

"Sir, let's start with making sure we know what's happening now, and how it's going to evolve." He looked Zuko straight in the eyes. "Why are they lowering your allowance piecemeal to motivate you? Instead of just taking your ship? It seems strange."

Zuko's head moved to the side, as if he wanted to dodge the question and look away but couldn't figure out a good excuse to. The corners of his mouth were pulled down tight. Jee was suddenly, uncomfortably reminded again of pinning that turtle-crab against the deck.

"The letter says why," Zuko muttered. "It's because my father wants to give me time to adjust. Find the Avatar soon, or find a way to keep the ship. He doesn't want me to fail."

He closed his eyes for a moment and seemed to take a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, but much more certain. 

"My father wants me to come home."

Jee frowned. He'd never gotten along all that well with his own family, but at least they'd been honest about where they stood with each other. There had been nothing like this complicated, sticky web of half-secrets and unvoiced expectations that seemed to hang between Zuko and his father.

"But sir, a hundred and eighty golden sen is a lot of money. Where are you supposed to get that from? Every month?"

Zuko made another pained grimace. He was pressing a hand against his stomach. 

"That's what I'm supposed to figure out."

What did they expect him to do? A hundred and eighty was a towering sum for them, but it had to be a pittance compared to what all the bigger ships in the fleet cost. Zuko could hardly be spending a great deal of Fire Nation resources just by existing here. If he still lived in the palace, he'd probably waste twice this amount just for gold-trimmed royal shoes or something.

Slashing the brat's funds didn't make much sense if you looked at it from that angle, but Jee did understand the general idea. It would certainly be very educational for Zuko to have to fend for himself, like all the other boys in the world who hadn't been born in a palace. If anything, it sounded like Jee should commend the Fire Lord on his willingness to _not_ coddle his son for once.

Still, looking at the trembling of Zuko's fingers, Jee couldn't shake the feeling that some sort of wrong was being done here.

He resisted the urge to stand up and pull Zuko out of the chair. This was a council, not a snuggling session. Nobody in this room had done anything to deserve snuggling.

"Sir, is there no way for you to ask your esteemed father for other assistance? So you could keep the ship?" Zuko bared his teeth again, and Jee quickly raised a hand. "I'm not suggesting you ask him for... leniency, sir. But perhaps he'd be willing to grant you a loan that you'd pay back in the end, instead of an allowance?"

"No," Zuko sighed.

Jee grumbled in irritation. "Sir, what's the harm in asking? Please, write to him."

Zuko seemed to draw himself up; he raised his head until he almost had to look down his nose at Jee, placed both hands on the armrests of the chair, and spread his feet on the floor. 

It was a transparent enough trick, one Jee had learned all gradations of in the military. In front of a superior officer, you made yourself as small as possible, hands to the sides and heels together until given permission to relax. But when you wanted to show you were in charge, you took up as much space as you could. Zuko rarely tried to do that while sitting, though; he preferred to stand, move about, and make a lot of noise to make sure everyone knew he was the one giving the orders. If he was staying put now, he had to be at his wits' end. Of course he'd been doing his pacing-and-shouting routine moments ago, and it had clearly failed to make Jee back off.

Or perhaps he was feeling too unwell to stand up again. The skin of his face was starting to look gray even in the warm lamp light, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. It didn't smell good. That shouldn't be happening if he had his fire completely under control again.

Jee frowned. "Sir? Are you ill?"

"My father..." Zuko's voice cracked, and he took a deep breath. "My father is busy with the war. He doesn't have time to answer my letters." He bit his lip. "And he's given me plenty of chances already. It would be ungrateful of me to ask for more."

Jee pitched his voice low, trying to sound as kind as possible. "But sir, he must know that he might never see you come home if you need to soldier on with so few resources. Surely he wouldn't want that."

Zuko's hand curled against his stomach. He definitely looked sick. "My father will do what he must for the Fire Nation. If he has to remove a weak heir from the line of succession, he will." 

He bit his lip again, much harder, and released it. He was quiet for so long that a patch of dull red bloomed in place of the white impression of his teeth. 

"But I'm _not_ weak, and I'll prove it. I'll find the Avatar if I have to crawl around the world on my hands and knees to do it."

He sounded as princely as Jee had ever heard him, absolutely sure of himself. There wasn't the slightest tremble or trace of doubt in his voice. It was a good try, a testament to how the General's lessons on the calming virtues of meditation and breath control were indeed sinking in. It would have worked if Jee had been paying any less attention. As it was, though, he heard the terror underneath as clearly as if Zuko had been screaming.

Jee looked at the shivering fingers digging into the dark fabric of Zuko's tunic. Whatever the brat was doing to compose himself, it wasn't working.

Oh, to Koh with this hands-off nonsense. Jee hadn't been raised to sit on his ass and let other people suffer just to make a point. "Cold cramp, sir?"

A nod. Zuko kept his lips pressed together so tightly they were completely invisible.

"It happens, sir. Your body isn't used to being left without fire," Jee said. He shifted back onto the bed as far as he could, opened his knees wide to make room, and patted the mattress between his legs. "Come sit here, with your back to me. I'll take care of it."

Zuko stared dully at Jee's outstretched hand.

"I thought you were angry with me."

The apprehension in his voice made Jee want to squirm.

"Sir, I was... I am." Jee shook his head. "It was thoughtless of you to hide this, and worse to steal from us. But..."

"I'll do better," Zuko interrupted him.

Jee blinked. Before he could think of an answer, Zuko's hand shot into the air to stop him.

"I'll do better," Zuko repeated. "I'm doing everything I can, but..." 

For a moment, he seemed to hesitate. Then his face hardened. "I _will_ do better. I'll find the Avatar, and I'll take you and Uncle and all the rest back to the Fire Nation, and..." He looked at Jee, good eye wide open and _this_ close to pleading. "One more chance. I'll make it count, I swear."

"Sir, your search for the Avatar is between you and your esteemed father." Jee couldn't care less about the damn Avatar, and his arm was starting to tingle. "You're doing well enough for me. You made a bad call with this, but perhaps we can fix it."

Zuko's good eye opened a little wider. "You were going to report me to Zhao just a few minutes ago."

"Sir, I wouldn't have. I just wanted you to talk with me." Jee lifted his hand up higher and beckoned. "You're in pain, there's no need for that. Come here. I'll fix it."

"I did it to myself." Zuko's second hand joined the first on his stomach. He hunched over a little more, as if to shield the weak, tender fire under his fingers from the cold air.

Jee clucked his tongue. "Sir, hurt teaches a man nothing. Are you learning anything right now?"

A hint of a nod. Zuko ducked his head so that a few strands of his long hair fell over his face.

"I did something bad."

Jee scoffed. "You knew right from the start you were doing something bad, and you did it anyway. I don't need you to be in pain, I need you to stop hiding things and work with me here."

A pause.

"You won't say a word to anyone."

He couldn't tell if that had been a question or an order. "No, sir. I already promised that."

When Zuko's fingers closed over his, it was still almost a surprise.

Jee hauled him out of the chair and towards the bed with one strong pull. Zuko produced a hissing whimper when Jee turned him around and tugged him down to sit between his legs; he didn't quite resist, just clutched at his stomach and tried to curl up again, with his head almost between his knees. His thighs were shivering against Jee's.

The empty cup was still standing on the chair's arm rest. Jee poured it full again and warmed the alcohol with a quick burst of heat.

"Here. Small sips," he murmured, "and deep breaths. It'll help thaw your muscles out again. You just left your body without fire too long, you'll be perfectly all right in a few minutes." He let a hand rest on the back of Zuko's neck and began to knead the clammy skin. "No need to worry."

Jee remembered the blind horror of the first time he'd gotten such a shock that his fire left him completely. It had happened in the middle of his first real sea battle, and he probably owed his life to the midshipman who'd pushed him out of sight behind a coil of rope and told him to just _breathe_ because this would pass soon. Then the man had let him recover in the infirmary when the cold cramps came, and Jee had been quite sure he'd met the nicest officer in the entire Navy. A pity that fellow had gotten killed soon after.

"I know it'll be fine, stop babying me." It was only a whisper, but Zuko still managed to make it all irritation and nothing else.

Jee raised his eyebrows. Then he realized he was looking at the back of Zuko's head, and the brat was definitely not seeing his expression. "Had your fire go out before, sir?"

"Once."

Jee gathered up the loose hairs dangling at the sides of Zuko's head and tucked them behind his unburned ear. When had that happened? They'd been in a few skirmishes in the past couple of years - overconfident pirates who thought they could take the small _Yuan_ , mostly. As far as Jee could remember, Zuko had comported himself admirably in those and fought along from start to finish. He couldn't think of any other situation in which the brat could have gotten enough of a scare to lose his fire.

"Do you want to talk about it, sir?"

The hair shifted as Zuko shook his head. "No."

"All right," Jee said. He reached out and tried to pry Zuko's arm away from his stomach. "Sir, let go. Come on."

That got him a pained growl, but the arm shifted enough for Jee to reach between it and Zuko's body. He felt around until he found the hem of the tunic, then let his fingers worm under it until he could splay his hands over the skin of Zuko's stomach. There was barely a hint of cold left in the core of fire under his hand, but he could feel the stomach muscles jumping and twitching.

Jee took a deep breath and began to warm his hands, gradually, carefully, trying not to shock the tissue too much. Zuko still made a hurting noise.

"Shhh," Jee murmured. He shifted to hold his patient closer, but his shoulders didn't quite fit around Zuko's. The brat was really too big to be held like a child.

He kept going until the muscles under his fingers felt like warm, thick clay, and the temperature of the skin had stopped fluctuating.

"Better, sir?"

Zuko was resting the back of his head against Jee's shoulder, eyes closed. His breathing had gone soft and deep.

"I didn't know you can do so many things with firebending," he whispered.

"What things, sir?"

"Fixing things." Fingers covered Jee's hand, pressing it down harder against his stomach. "Things that feel good."

Jee smiled against the side of Zuko's head and took a deep breath, stoking the fire in his own gut. Zuko whimpered and arched his spine against the heat from behind.

"I suppose it's not really taught, sir. I've only ever had real training for combat bending. The other things I picked up from people I met." He made a loose fist and began to rub his knuckles up and down Zuko's stomach, smoothening out the last few spots of tension. "This, for example, I learned from my grandfather. He was too old to train me, but he showed me what to do when I'd overdone it and everything hurt."

Zuko shifted against him, heavy and warm. "Where did he learn it?"

"At school, I think." Jee slipped both arms around Zuko's middle and just hugged him close. "I don't remember ever hearing about it in school myself. And I'm fairly sure my own mother didn't know either." It was rather curious, now that he thought about it. You'd think they'd rush to teach all benders how to take care of their sore muscles so they wouldn't have to bother a medic or tough it out.

"You'll be fine from here on, sir. Just use your breath of fire to warm up, there shouldn't be anything in the way now. Take it slow." 

He pulled his hands from under Zuko's shirt, ignoring the kid's mumbled protest. "Sir?" 

"What?" Zuko sounded half asleep.

"Permission to speak plainly?" Jee tried for a business-like tone, to signal that they weren't done with the serious talk.

Zuko snorted. "What else have you been doing up to now?"

"Permission, sir?" Jee insisted. _Look, you're still in charge. No need to get your hackles up._

"Granted," Zuko sighed. He pushed himself to his feet, wobbled a bit, and seemed to decide he wasn't up to standing after all. When he tried to sit down again, he landed on Jee's left thigh instead of on the bunk. He just grumbled and shifted back, so he was sitting to the side on the mattress with both of his legs resting on Jee's.

Jee was momentarily distracted by the realization that Prince Zuko was sitting on his _knee_. More or less.

"Sir," he rallied. "Even if you haven't found another source of income yet, you have to stop stealing right now. You..."

"I'm working on another solution," Zuko interrupted. He leaned his elbows on his knees and bent his head between them so he could rub at his neck. "This is temporary. But I have to, there's no other way."

"You _must_ stop." Jee lowered his voice. "Sir, when they catch a thief in the Earth Kingdom, they crush his hand. They don't even call the authorities, they just find a big rock and do it themselves." Zuko's fingers twitched. "And if you try to get out of that by telling them who you are, word will get out. To your esteemed father, perhaps."

Zuko shook his head. "I won't get caught. I know what I'm doing."

Maybe he did. Jee had to grant it to him, it took some skill to sneak around a small ship nicking things and not get caught for months. But still.

"Are you at least hiding your face, sir?"

"I have a scarf."

"Get something better. A mask. Something that puts your eyes in the shadow," Jee said. "I don't know how good the dirt grubbers are at it, but our soldiers are all used to recognizing each other by the eyes alone. Yours are very recognizable."

Zuko looked away, staring at the nearest wall as if there was something important in the patches on the metal. "Okay. Fine."

Jee squeezed one of the knees resting on his thigh. Zuko's legs were heavy.

"But that's not even going to make any difference in the end. Even if you don't get caught, sir, and you just keep doing this... We may be forced to show the ledger at any port of call, the quartermasters have a right to ask for it before supplying us with anything. And if you keep sailing on your ship as usual, won't Caldera want to know sooner or later what your new source of income is?" He leaned in. "Right now, you could be using your savings, but if you keep this up for half a year or so..."

For a moment, Zuko just stared at him. Then he squeezed his eyes shut.

 _Ah. Didn't think of that, did you?_ "Besides, sir, _I_ don't want you out on the street stealing."

Zuko didn't open his eyes. "Because it's dishonorable."

"Yes, sir," Jee said, and then felt a sharp twinge of guilt when Zuko flinched. He hadn't meant for that to sting. Any more than he'd meant to shout and snarl the brat into that kind of panic, but he'd done it, and Zuko had been his usual stout self and bulldozed right through. It was probably a good thing that they both had a thick skin.

He shifted his legs and felt Zuko's bare toes knock against his shins. "But mostly, sir... Sir, my job here is to make sure this ship can sail in good shape with a healthy, competent crew. And you're part of the crew. I want my men safely on board at night instead of stumbling through some dark harbor with a bleeding stump for a hand."

No answer. Jee reached out, took the empty cup from Zuko's hand, and busied himself with filling it.

"Sir, no more stealing. You need to fix this in some other way. At once."

Zuko's face disappeared behind his hands.

"I don't know how," he breathed.

Jee opened his mouth to tell the brat to stop whining and have another drink. Then it hit him what a momentous admission he'd just heard.

He took a moment to let that sink in. 

"That's what you have officers for, sir. To bounce around ideas until we find a solution." He patted Zuko's knee, a little awkwardly. "To share the load with." The knee twitched, and Jee tightened his fingers around it. 

Zuko sighed into his hands. "Lieutenant, you read the letter. I'm supposed to fix this on my own. Get more resourceful. I can't let you solve anything."

"Sir, talking to me isn't anything like asking for help that you... don't deserve. I'm your subordinate. Your lieutenant. It's my _job_ to fix problems for you." He kept his thumb pressed against the kneecap and let his other fingers travel down until he could press them into the soft skin under the leg. "You're supposed to talk to me whenever there's a serious problem related to the ship. Not just when you want to chat about jaunts to the South Pole."

Zuko shot him a rather confused little glare over his fingers, as if Jee had just spoken to him in dirt grubber's gibberish. 

He might as well have, probably. There were few things Zuko was worse at than delegating. In two decades in the military, Jee hadn't met a single other commander who was this incapable of sharing information and consulting with his ship's officers, like even the stupidest, most empty-headed hoity-toity noble midshipman learned to do on his first days at sea...

Wait. 

Jee narrowed his eyes and tried the unfamiliar benefit-of-the-doubt thing again. Zuko had never gone through proper officer training, had he? He'd been put in charge of this floating heap without even a lick of military training, hoisted into a suit of armor with no idea how to move in it. He _hadn't_ gotten even a midshipman's education. Was it possible that he honestly had no idea what to do with his officers?

If Jee had been plucked from his home village and given command of a whole ship just like that, when he'd never had to interact with anyone but other thirteen-year-olds, let alone a whole pack of gruff and growling naval officers and sailors...

"Sir?"

Zuko dropped his hands into his lap. He looked even more tired than before; the scarred eye was barely more than a hint of gold now. It always seemed to start closing long before the healthy eye began to droop, and Jee wondered how much trouble it was to keep the bad eye open at all. The knotted scar tissue looked stiff and heavy.

"What, Lieutenant?"

"Sir, I'm not sure anyone ever explained this to you, but... In the Navy, nobody's supposed to solve any problem by themselves. Ships are small, and dangerous, and everyone depends on each other to stay alive. If you hide things that go wrong and keep other people from assisting, they start mistrusting you." 

Zuko cocked his head, and Jee took that as a sign that the kid was hearing something novel and interesting. "Ships are dangerous enough without people hiding issues, sir. We have fixed ways of solving problems together, things that everyone knows and understands. For instance, if there's something with the finances, you invite whoever's keeping the ledger first, without his direct superior there to make sure he'll speak freely. You make sure that what's going on won't affect the crew's pay or their food, because if anything goes wrong with those, you're in for a world of trouble. Try to solve it at a lower level first, and only involve higher-ups if absolutely necessary. The men like feeling that you trust them to handle their responsibilities, and besides..."

Zuko's lone eyebrow curled into a puzzled frown. "That sort of thing isn't in the Naval Code. I studied all of it when I started here."

"It's not a law, sir. More like a guideline. In officer training, they make you copy out a scroll about the most effective way to get problems and solutions up and down the chain of command. It has these little diagrams about who you're supposed to talk to first, according to rank, of course, but also according to age, and relevant experience, and intelligence, and likelihood that you'll get a useful response..."

The confusion on Zuko's face was shifting into blank incomprehension. It would be mean to laugh at him. Very mean, Jee had to remind himself. 

"I'll just get you a copy, sir." He'd used his own for latrine-related purposes a long time ago, but perhaps Haisu still had one. That man hoarded papers like bat-squirrels kept acorns. "The basic idea is, you keep the important people in your ship informed about what's going on at all times, and you consult with them whenever it's practical. The more often, the better. It helps keep them on your side." He couldn't believe he was even explaining this.

"But I'm in charge. I'm responsible, so I'm supposed to make the decisions."

"Yes, in the end, but..." Jee groped for the right words. "It's hard on the spirit if you constantly take personal responsibility for everything, sir. It's exhausting. And it makes you hate the people who have to carry out your orders, because after a while, it starts to look like they're always doing everything wrong on purpose. But the real problem is often that they just can't read your mind." 

Jee peered at Zuko, wondering if the brat recognized himself in the criticism. Zuko glared back.

"...Anyway. It's exhausting to lead like that, sir. That's why I leave other people in charge sometimes, and why I like to speak with the first mate, or with Cook, or with General Iroh before I announce any decision. Especially one that's difficult or unpopular. Even when I'm technically allowed to make that decision all by myself. Other people sometimes have good insights, and it really helps if they feel they've been consulted and are prepared to stand by me if the others get upset. That doesn't mean that I'm any less in charge, or responsible. It's just the way we like to do things on ships." _And the reason why you're a bad commander. One of the many reasons why._

For an uncomfortably long time, Zuko just stared at him. He was slumping forward again, elbows on his knees and hands hanging limp between them.

"Sir?" Jee tried.

"I didn't know it worked like that."

There was a confused, oddly _hurt_ note in his voice. As if Jee and the rest of the crew had been playing some kind of secret game for the last two and a half years, and deliberately refused to let him in on the rules. 

Jee very briefly considered patting the brat on the head. Yes, that would be a wonderful way to get his hand burned off. Perhaps he'd have enough fingers left to ruffle Zuko's hair and feed him some of the pickled plum candies hidden under his pillow. And after that, he could try lullabies. 

He settled for squeezing the knee he was still holding. "Well, now you know."

"Uncle didn't tell me about all this," Zuko said. He still sounded unhappy.

"Sir, General Iroh is royalty, and he isn't Navy. He's Army. He probably got a different training from the rest of us." And he could interact with people without needing a diagram. "Didn't he tell you about how to delegate problems to your crew? Maybe when you'd just come on board?"

Zuko was quiet for a long time.

"I don't remember," he finally muttered.

Ah. So the General probably had tried to give lessons on taking command of a ship, and the brat just hadn't bothered to listen to any sentence that wasn't about the Avatar. Typical.

"All right, sir," Jee sighed. "All right. Let's just try to think of a solution to your allowance problem for now."

"Fine," Zuko said. He seemed to take a deep breath, then looked at Jee with a awkward grimace. "Do you... have any suggestions, Lieutenant?

Jee smiled. That had sounded about as natural as a sparrowgull barking, but it was progress.

"Perhaps, sir. As I understand it, your esteemed father won't give you a loan instead of an allowance. But would it be possible for you to take a loan somewhere else? From some nobleman or high officer who bears you good will? Surely you'd have no trouble paying it back once you have the Avatar." Or no problem hiding or... whatever he'd do if... _when_ it turned out that there was no Avatar and he couldn't pay his debts.

Zuko's face fell. "I don't know anyone who'd give me a loan." 

Ah, yes. The General had said that Zuko was forced out of court so early that he'd had no time or opportunity to form alliances.

The General. Of course. "Sir, surely your esteemed uncle will know someone willing to help. You should ask him to..."

"No!" Now Zuko seemed to come alive again, hands curling into fists and eyes blazing. "Didn't you _read_ that letter? Uncle isn't even supposed to be here anymore! I have to solve this myself! If I involve Uncle, I might as well spit on my father's orders right out!"

He hunched his shoulders and glowered. For a moment, he looked like nothing so much as a sullen child. "Besides, Uncle wouldn't help."

Jee blinked. "Why wouldn't he?"

"He wouldn't help," Zuko repeated, voice hard. "He'd say this is a sign we have to stop looking for the Avatar and _settle down_ somewhere in the stupid Earth Kingdom. He thinks I need to give up!"

Well, the General had confessed that he had been trying to talk with Zuko about that sort of thing. The brat wasn't really making things up, but...

"Sir, no. He'd help. He'd do whatever makes you happy." He rubbed Zuko's thigh with one hand. "Why not ask for his counsel, at least?"

"He can't help me anymore." Zuko shook his head. "I've been leaning on him for too long already."

"Sir, you know he doesn't think that way about..."

"He wasn't even supposed to help me in the first place," Zuko murmured. He'd slumped so low that his forehead was almost on Jee's shoulder.

Jee had to tilt his head to keep his face in view. "Sir?"

"I was supposed to look for the Avatar alone. But Uncle just decided he was going to come along, and then he appointed himself my warden, and he arranged for a ship and an allowance behind my back." Zuko frowned deeper. "He didn't even tell me for _months_."

"What do you mean, behind your back, sir?"

Zuko raised a hand to his face.

"This had just happened." His fingertips drifted close to the scar, then withdrew again. "The palace physicians drugged me. I didn't know what Uncle was doing. I was supposed to leave with nothing. Find my own way out of the Fire Nation, and look for the Avatar by myself."

"You're lucky he intervened on your behalf, sir. You wouldn't have survived for long otherwise." Not in the state Zuko had been in when he first came on board. 

Had the Fire Lord really meant for _that_ child to leave on his own? Kicking a spoiled, pampered thirteen-year-old out onto the street with no money and a fresh injury seemed like a recipe for swift and terminal disaster. The brat would have starved or died of infection in weeks, if he didn't find another way to get killed first.

"I'd have been fine," Zuko insisted. "I can take care of myself." 

Maybe he would have made it. If he didn't mind behaving like a common criminal, he could just have stolen whatever food or medicine he needed.

Jee thought of the life he'd been leading before the General's fateful letter, surviving in the royal harbor on the pittance that the Navy paid to sailors who weren't on active duty. He'd worked every odd job he could find and spent every coin he got on drinking with Haisu and Peng, while he waited for the next commission that he knew would never come. They'd had a favorite waterfront hangout, the Swimming Dragon, a dark hole full to bursting with sailors without ships.

If Zuko really had left his palace alone in search of transport, maybe he'd have found his way to the Swimming Dragon eventually. Jee wondered what he would have done if he'd stomped into his bar one night and found the bundle of sneering fury that was Prince Zuko at thirteen - except alone and penniless, injured, and probably spitting at everyone around him. 

He tried to convince himself that he would have been kind. He wouldn't have had anything to offer the kid, but... Maybe a drink or two, and some words of advice. 

"Sir, you're not making much sense." Jee pitched his voice low. "If you're going to refuse to talk with your esteemed uncle because he wasn't supposed to assist you, you should just give up the ship right now. Because you weren't supposed to have it in the first place."

The flash of fierce anger that crossed Zuko's face told Jee that that had been a step over some line. He tensed and braced himself for the outburst that was sure to follow.

Then Zuko seemed to deflate again. He slumped back down, keeping his head well away from Jee's shoulder this time. 

"I suppose you want me to give it up. So you can go home, too."

"Not particularly, sir. There's not much for me there." Jee almost sighed in relief. No shouting. "And if going home means abandoning you and General Iroh in the Earth Kingdom somewhere, I'd..."

"Uncle can go home any time he wants." Zuko sounded so small all of a sudden that Jee had to remind himself that barely sixteen was _nothing_ like grown up. He'd known sixteen-year-olds who'd been completely alone all their lives and knew how to handle it, but Zuko was one of those lucky little bastards who'd always had someone there to take care of them. He'd always had parents, and a sister, and an uncle who treasured him like he was the only boy in the world.

Jee remembered being glad of going to the Navy on his own at fourteen, and proud, and ready to leave everything behind and stand on his own legs because he wanted to. But all Zuko was trying to do was go back to his home and the people in it. Whatever had happened to force him out, the brat hadn't gone willingly, and now he was terrified at the idea that his last remaining relative was going away too.

Jee wondered what it was like to love your family so fiercely that there was nothing worse than being separated from them.

"Your esteemed uncle would never leave you, sir. Never." Jee reached out and rubbed the back of Zuko's neck. "Nobody's leaving. I'd much rather be here on this ship than in the royal harbor. Believe me, I'll help you keep it."

It was still more than odd to realize that he wanted some of the same things Prince Zuko wanted.

"I'm not giving up the ship," Zuko said, rather loudly. "I'm of age now, and it's _mine_. I'll support it myself!"

Well, that was good, and it was comforting to hear Zuko talk almost like his usual noisy and annoying self. But they still didn't have a solution. 

"Sir, do you have any other way to get a permanent monthly income, besides a loan? And besides stealing," Jee added quickly.

The ugly frown was back in full force.

"No. I've considered everything!" Zuko snorted out two tendrils of smoke. "I could sell some of my scrolls and things, but that would help only for a while. Maybe I could... I don't know. Work," he said, as if he had any idea what he was talking about. "But there's no job that would get me a hundred and eighty gold every month. And if I stop anywhere to try and make money, I'm just wasting time that I should be spending on finding the Avatar."

"How much do you think those scrolls are worth, sir?"

Zuko pouted. "I showed a few at a shop in Nan Seng, and described the rest. They told me I could hope to get four hundred gold for the whole lot. Maybe five hundred, if I'm lucky."

Before Jee could think to grab on to him, Zuko shifted his legs down to the ground and stalked over to his boots again. He dug around in one - how much was he _keeping_ in there? - and produced a few tightly-folded sheets of paper.

One was the document with the many rows that Jee had seen him fiddling with when he'd come in with the bowls of noodles days ago. So that was what he'd been doing with his chest full of Avatar scrolls... Calculating how much they were worth.

His chest full of _expensive_ Avatar scrolls. Jee shot the brat an exasperated glare as he smoothed out the papers on his thigh.

"You stole the scrolls too, didn't you?"

"Yeah." Zuko crossed his arms. He obviously wasn't feeling nearly as ashamed about it as Jee would have liked. Fine, then.

"Would you sell them? Don't they have important information about the Avatar?"

Zuko made a face. "I've memorized them all." For a moment, he looked as thoroughly sick of the Avatar as any twelve-year-old who was fed up with studying historical dates and poetry for homework.

Jee looked over the other paper. It was a rough calculation of their budget for the next half year, just the regular costs, taking into account their dwindling allowance and factoring in the extras from the scrolls. Four or five hundred alone could tide them over for almost three months. Four, if you added the small sum Haisu had managed to save and which Zuko clearly hadn't found out about. Another few months with the sad remainders of their allowance. 

But that was if everything went smoothly, and Jee had yet to experience a month on this good old wreck that didn't involve a good deal of extra spending. Things on the _Yuan_ blew up with such regularity that Haisu referred to the repair costs as their foreseeable unforeseeable expenses.

Jee wasn't an expert on finances, but he could tell that this optimistic six-month budget was very likely to be a three- or four-month budget in reality. Maybe they could handle the showers breaking down, but if one or two absolutely essential things exploded, they'd be as good as ruined in no time. And there wasn't enough for ice-proof plating or decent polar gear no matter what.

He sighed and folded the papers again. "Sir, we can keep going until spring, but the South Pole expedition is definitely impossible. You were going to finance it by stealing, I suppose?"

Zuko made a harsh sound, and Jee tensed in anticipation. A few moment later, though, he felt the hard mattress shift as Zuko sat down next to him. 

Jee looked to the side. Zuko had both elbows on his knees and his eyes firmly on his folded hands.

"No, it would have been too expensive to steal it all," he said. He began to rub one thumb with the other, and stared at the motion as if it was happening completely beyond his will. "I'm going to sell the scrolls. It's not like I'll need them again if I fail at the South Pole." 

"Sir, you should just skip the South Pole entirely. That would leave us with more months to find a different..."

"We're going."

Jee shook his head. "Sir, it would be your last chance."

"I know." Zuko closed his eyes. "I'll make it count."

The papers in Jee's lap were a black mess of crossed-out numbers and calculations, dotted with sooty fingerprints. Jee contemplated the whole smudged chaos and tried to forget he might be looking at the last few months of his life here.

"...I'm sorry, sir. But four or five hundred from your scrolls isn't enough," he said with a gentleness that surprised even himself. "The first mate says the plating alone would cost us half a year of our regular allowance."

"I know," Zuko sighed. 

He reached into his boot again, and Jee leaned over to get a better look. At this point, he half expected the kid to just pull all necessary ice-proof plating from his footwear.

But Zuko produced only a dagger in a fine, lacquered sheath. It didn't take Jee more than a moment to place it.

"Isn't that the dagger that your esteemed uncle received from General How? When he broke through the Great Wall?"

Zuko's eyebrow shot up. "You know about that?"

"I was there, sir. He ordered it sent to his nephew in Caldera, I remember." He hadn't thought about that in years. One of General Iroh's aides had whined about sending a pearl and red rhino horn work of art to a child who'd just poke trees with it, but the General had laughed and said he knew his nephew would treat the gift with all the respect it deserved.

"Ah." Zuko drew the blade forth. The way he turned it in his hand was so strangely tender that Jee immediately understood why Zuko had brought this thing into exile with him, of all the royal nonsense he could have dragged along. From the way he was looking at the weapon, one might have thought it was the General himself.

"I disassembled it once," Zuko said in a low whisper. "There's markings at the bottom of the blade, where you can't see them while it's mounted. It's a real Hori."

Jee sucked in a startled breath. Every child in the Fire Nation knew the name of the legendary swordmaster who forged his blades in the fire of his great dragon.

"Are you certain? Sir? Surely General How and your esteemed uncle wouldn't have passed it around so lightly if..."

"I don't suppose they knew," Zuko replied. "This blade isn't in the records we have about Hori at the palace. But it's genuine, I showed it to Master Piandao."

"You know Master Piandao?" Jee knew nothing of swordplay, but Piandao was almost as legendary in both the Army and the Navy as Hori the Dragonsmith was throughout the whole of the nation.

A nod. "A little. My mother visited his estate sometimes. He taught me a few forms, and I showed this to him and said I thought it might be a Hori, and he said I was right." 

Zuko _smiled_ at the blade, and for an instant, there was so much love on his face that Jee wanted to touch his cheek to make sure he was real.

He extended both hands towards the dagger instead. "May I, sir?"

Zuko nodded and placed the weapon flat across Jee's palms. There was something odd about the gleam of it, as if it was too bright to be real, but maybe his imagination was getting away from him.

"What about the inscription, sir? It says it was made in the Earth Kingdom."

"That was added later," Zuko said. He shot the offending characters a nasty glower. 

Of course dirt munchers wouldn't know to respect a priceless dragonfire blade. "It's beautiful, sir."

Zuko ran a finger along the pale metal. "If you look closely, you can see there's very thin red lines under that stupid inscription. Like veins. "

Jee peered closer. "I... think I see them, sir." Or maybe he didn't. It was hard to be sure; the windows of his cabin gave a reddish tint even to daylight.

"Those are from the dragon's fire," Zuko whispered. "That's how you can really tell it's genuine. No other forging process can make those."

Squinting hard now, Jee lifted the blade up higher. Now he was quite sure the traces of the fire weren't actually visible to him, but... There was _something_ about the metal.

It was warm, he realized. There was no way this blade should have been anything but cool, after several hours in an empty boot. Zuko had touched only the handle just now.

"It's okay if you can't see the lines. I can't," Zuko's voice sounded next to him, almost wistful. "Not since my eyes went bad. And that stupid inscription hides them pretty well anyway. But they're there."

Suddenly, Jee got the feeling he was touching something private that wasn't his to lay hands on. He offered the dagger back to Zuko with a respectful bow of his head.

"Thank you, sir."

"Master Piandao said I had an excellent eye for noticing them at all," Zuko murmured as he took the dagger by the handle again.

Then the soft contentment on his face began to fade. "He also said never to tell anyone, because they'd take it away from me. It's worth at least a thousand golden sen. Enough for the plating, and the gear for the crew."

Jee only just kept his mouth from falling open.

"Sir, you can't sell that! It's a treasure. And a gift from your uncle, besides."

The blade slid back into its sheath with a sharp _click_. 

"If I don't find the Avatar this time, I don't deserve to have it anyway."

"You will _not_ sell that. Sir," Jee said. "Keep it for when you need it the most. Don't waste it on one expedition."

Zuko shook his head. He looked strangely calm now, almost resigned. "Now is when I need it the most. I'll lose the ship in months no matter what I do. It has to be the South Pole or nothing."

He couldn't possibly have thought this through.

"Sir, but what are you going to do if you sell it and still don't find the Avatar down there? You'll have _nothing_."

"I'll deal with it, Lieutenant. It's not your problem so long as I get this ship back to civilization before our money runs out."

Jee couldn't quite put his finger on it, but somehow, the idea of Zuko putting everything he had left into this one jaunt and then finding himself ruined was _very_ hard to even contemplate.

"But sir..."

"Enough," Zuko snapped. His glare was back. "I've decided to risk it, Lieutenant, and this is _my_ risk to take."

He lowered the dagger into his boot again with more care than Jee had ever seen him take with anything.

"When we get to Ishihama tomorrow, I'll sell the scrolls and the dagger, and we'll use the money to pay for the plating and the gear. Then we go south."

Jee sighed. Fine, then.

"Sir, I strongly counsel you to do that selling in Nan Seng, or sail on to Naha higher to the north. You've seen Ishihama, you know how little there is over there. It's barely more than a military outpost. Surely you'll get a better price in a place where there are more merchants who might appreciate the value of what you have to offer."

They'd made port at Ishihama twice before. It was a windy, harsh, and boring town. Over half of it had been reduced to ash during a revolt five years ago, and most of the dirt munchers had fled and never returned. The Fire Lord hadn't managed to rustle up many colonists desperate enough to want to live at the very edge of the Earth Kingdom's cold southern coast, either. Of the houses that had survived the blaze, most were still unoccupied, and the place was mostly a military supply port now.

Zuko shook his head. "We'll lose almost three weeks if we turn back to Nan Seng now, and even more if we go on to Naha. The pack ice could be closed if we approach the pole so late." He stared down at his boot. "I don't need the best price I can get, I just need enough."

"You'll also need to ask Ishihama's commander for permission to do any trade there, sir. Especially for such expensive goods. There's barely any civil administration there at all. The army controls the whole place, and they're very careful about giving civilians the opportunity to get their hands on something valuable."

A grumble. "I'll get permission, how hard can that be."

"Nan Seng would have been better. You should have planned this more in advance, sir," Jee said before he thought better of it.

Zuko just shrugged. 

"I still think we can go without that stupid plating," he muttered.

"I don't, sir. You could get everybody killed. Besides, the crew won't want to risk it." They'd come within a hair's breadth of a full-out mutiny at least five times over the last couple of years. The men had calmed down quite a bit now, but if anything was going to set them off again, it would be the prospect of another ill-equipped trip to the place where half of them had almost died.

Zuko glowered. "As long as I'm paying them, they need to do what I say."

"You're not just their commander, you're their shipmate, and you _stole_ from them," Jee said, loudly. He'd forgotten he was still mad about that. 

Apparently Zuko had, too. His head snapped around towards Jee.

"Don't tell them! You _promised_..."

Jee held up a hand. "Sir, I'll protect you this once. The men won't find out," he said. "But you owe them. If you're going to take them south, you have to do everything you can to ensure their safety."

Zuko's lip curled. "Fine. Let me know if they want any tea and cakes while they're doing the work I pay them for."

Jee only just managed to bite down on a startled laugh.

"I'll check with the men about their preference in cakes, sir."

The watch bells were ringing on the bridge, he realized. The dog watch? Had they really been in here for only three hours? It felt like three days. Jee was quite sure he could drop down and go to sleep right now.

He rose from the bunk and began to take off his armor. "Shall we rest a bit, sir? You should give your fire time to recover, and we have another watch in a few hours."

"I'm not staying here," Zuko said. He was following Jee's movements with what looked suspiciously like interest, though. "We'll be in Ishihama tomorrow. I have things I need to prepare. And I won't get any rest here."

Jee considered putting the armor on its stand. No, that was more work than he wanted to put up with right now. He opened his sea chest and just dropped the lot in.

When he turned towards his bunk again, Zuko was still sitting there. He didn't move to leave even when Jee settled down on the mattress behind him. Jee smiled at his back and slipped his hand under Zuko's tunic again, feeling for the lines of his stomach muscles. 

"Then just lie down with me for a little while. You can stay awake and keep watch in case somebody knocks on the door. Come here, it'll help you warm up."

"I'm fine now. I'm fixing it myself, it's much better already," Zuko muttered. 

Jee sent a gentle pulse of warmth through his fingers and massaged it into Zuko's skin, careful not to tickle. "Good, but let me assist you, sir."

He reached around to let both hands rest on the small of Zuko's back. When he exerted some gentle but insistent pressure and began to let himself sink back onto the bed, Zuko followed. 

_Good boy._

It took a few moments of fumbling to get comfortable, but Zuko somehow managed to fit himself half on top of Jee in a way that didn't make his considerable weight hinder Jee's breathing. His hipbones weren't pointy enough to be more than noticeable, and his skin really did feel nearly as hot as it usually did. A rather impressively fast recovery, even accounting for the fact that he'd had help.

Zuko stretched his arms up so he could bury his hands in Jee's hair. He'd been doing that a lot in the past couple of days. Jee didn't really get the attraction; it was rough hair, sticky with salt, and too short to get a good grip on. But he wasn't going to complain.

Jee smiled and reached out to pull the blanket over them. His own familiar bunk, a toasty warm boy, and no sound except for their breathing and the distant thrum of the engines. No more whining about money. No more crazy talk.

Maybe he could dole out some praise again, just to end this miserable discussion on a positive note. 

"Good bending, sir. You found your flame again fast. The first time I lost it, it took me half a day to get better." Not to mention some of the later times he'd had his fire scared right out of him and not recovered for weeks.

Zuko didn't reply, but he squirmed against Jee's side in a way that _felt_ pleased.

Hmmm. "But if our finances are tight, sir, you should stop using your bending to keep warm all the time. We can't really afford that."

"This ship is cold," Zuko groused. "I was freezing all the time last winter. Now I know the breath of fire, why can't I use it?"

"Because you need far more food than usual if you're bending all the time, and we can't afford to have people eat more than their share when we're on long journeys where we might not be able to restock on schedule. Like an expedition to the South Pole." He patted Zuko's bare arm. "Just wear some more clothes, sir."

Zuko made a sort of huffy growling noise, as if conceding to wear a coat at the South Pole would be like admitting defeat. Jee understood the sentiment, but there really wasn't that much dishonor in feeling cold under the combined assault of all the ice and snow spirits that the Water savages could summon.

"You could come sleep here, sir. It's warmer with two people."

"No," Zuko said. "Your blanket is too small. It's just for one."

The brat had a point, somewhat, but it was a stupid point. "Oh, for spirits' sake. Bring your own blanket, then. Just come a bit closer for now."

Jee tightened his arms around Zuko's middle and hefted him nearly on top of himself. He tugged the blanket up over Zuko's bald head, until there was nothing visible of him except a single baleful yellow eye.

"Here," Jee said. "You're warm. Now stop bending."

There was some annoyed grumbling from under the blanket, but the thrum of heat against Jee's own stomach began to fade a little.

"Don't tell anyone." A pause. "Especially not Uncle."

Jee had to think for a moment to follow that non sequitur. Oh, so they were back to this again.

"Sir, you can't keep hiding all this from your esteemed uncle for long." The brat wasn't a complete idiot. He couldn't possibly think he could keep this under wraps for much longer. "Why not talk to him before we head into Ishihama tomorrow? You should get it off your chest, even if you feel like you can't let him help."

Zuko was silent for so long that Jee almost thought he'd fallen asleep. When he finally answered, it was so quietly that Jee could barely hear him, even this close up. 

"I don't want to tell. He'll be so disappointed."

Jee spread his fingers over the curve of Zuko's back and felt something inside him soften. _And you don't want to disappoint him, do you?_

He was really, truly glad he didn't have any children of his own. Poor General Iroh. Jee wondered if all sons were this hard to raise, or if Zuko was just an extraordinarily dense and infuriating specimen.

"Sir, he'll forgive you." Jee took a deep breath of brat-scented air and turned his head to the side for a kiss. But Zuko chose that exact moment to start nuzzling what seemed to be his favorite spot at the base of Jee's neck, and Jee ended up with his mouth against an eyebrow. He pretended he'd meant to do that and pressed a soft kiss to the side of Zuko's eye. "Nobody can do the right thing all the time, sir. And you're young and learning. People will forgive you worse mistakes than this."

The silence lasted far too long. It was unnerving. Jee reached up and rubbed behind Zuko's good ear with two fingers. His mother's tame fox-cat used to like that.

"Sir?"

"Don't tell Uncle," Zuko whispered. "I will when I have to. Just... Don't."

The thin shell of the ear between Jee's fingers felt chilled, the deep kind of cold that came from within more than from the wintry air. The brat was still scared. He was actually afraid that Jee might tell.

Jee cupped the ear with his whole hand and sent out a slow pulse of heat.

"I'll keep your secrets," he murmured. 

Jee could feel Zuko's fingers curl into a fist against his ribs. 

"I'm sorry."

He was what, now? "Sir?" 

Zuko shifted for a bit, as if he was trying to find a position he was used to and kept being surprised by Jee's arms and legs getting in the way. 

"I'm sorry for bringing dishonor on the ship. I didn't mean to. I didn't consider that what I do reflects on all of..." A soft exhale. "I didn't think."

Jee adjusted his hold on Zuko's waist. "No one will ever know, sir. Not from me." 

Zuko made a short, half-formed sound, as if he'd been about to say something but swallowed it at the last possible moment. His fingers moved over Jee's scalp restlessly, so warm that Jee half suspected the brat was cheating and still using his breath of fire. One of his own ears was completely covered by the inside of Zuko's wrist, and he could feel the pulse inside thrumming steady and strong. 

Jee sighed and turned his head into the sound. "Sir, do you want to be Fire Lord one day?"

"I _will_ be Fire Lord one day," Zuko said at once. 

Jee thought of what the General had said about Zuko's chances for succeeding to the throne, and then about the situation they were in right now. He couldn't decide whether the brat's absolute confidence was laughable or impressive. "Then you should learn to be a good commander of men, sir." He nudged Zuko's arm with his nose. "Talk to them, and listen to them."

"Hmph."

Praise, remember to praise. "Sir, it was good of you to put providing for your crew over your own honor. Thank you."

He could _feel_ Zuko's lips curl against his shoulder. "Fat lot of good it did."

Jee sighed. "I just mean that even though you could have avoided this situation, sir, it was still good of you to do everything you could." He'd handled the whole thing badly, but he'd handled it. "You're like a father to your men, sir, in a way. That means you have a duty to provide for them and defend them, and not sully their honor with your own mistakes. But it also means that your men have to do everything they can to make your responsibilities easier to bear. Keep that in mind. Let us help."

Zuko huffed. "If you lot thought I was your father, you'd obey me better."

Brat. Jee pinched his ear, though not hard.

"Children have a duty to love and obey their fathers, sir. But their fathers have a duty to provide them with good, honorable guidance, and to treat them well. You can keep that in mind too."

Another one of those tense, heavy silences. Jee was beginning to wonder if Zuko was just so miserably bad at normal conversations that he didn't even notice when a pause was long enough to get awkward.

"Like by not giving them the lash," he finally said.

That... wasn't what Jee had expected him to keep his mind on, out of all the memorable things that had been said in this whole disaster of a conversation. 

"Yes, sir. Like by not giving them the lash. Cruelty is dishonorable."

"I'm not cruel," Zuko muttered. He sounded small and unhappy.

Jee sighed. "No, sir, you aren't." He was, sometimes, but only out of thoughtlessness and ignorance. Jee had seen a lot of genuine cruelty in his life. This boy nuzzling into his shoulder didn't have the spark of it - or at least not yet. "Go to sleep, sir."

He let one hand drift up along Zuko's spine until he could stroke the brat's hair. Like Jee's own, it had acquired that permanent layer of stickiness that came with many seawater washings. But if he caught Zuko in the showers, while the hair was good and wet, Jee was sure he'd be able to comb his fingers through it as easily as through flame.

There was a faint flutter of eyelashes against his skin. Zuko buried his face closer against Jee's neck. The leathery surface of the scar felt strange, slightly cooler than the rest of him.

"I want to fuck," he muttered, dry lips rough against Jee's throat. "Let's do it. Now."

Jee only just kept from laughing. Somehow, he hadn't expected that the mood swings might go in _good_ directions too.

"No, you just want to stop thinking about this mess. Some other time. When you're actually paying attention."

"Stop treating me like some delicate maiden," Zuko grumbled. "I can do it. I know how to do it."

 _Delicate maiden_. This time Jee did snigger, but he managed to disguise it as a cough, mostly. Oh, youth and their fragile pride.

He worked his hands under the waistline of Zuko's pants and slid them around so he could cup each firm buttock. The worn cotton that brushed over his knuckles was soft enough, but the contrast with the silky-hot skin under his fingers was so pronounced that the fabric felt as coarse as sackcloth in comparison. 

He squeezed, gently. Zuko made a small sound, seemed to tense all his muscles at once, and then melted down against Jee as if he didn't have a single bone in his body.

"I'm not treating you like some delicate maiden," Jee whispered against the shell of his ear. "I just want to savor you. Sir."

"Soon," Zuko said, breath hot and moist against Jee's throat. It wasn't a question.

"Yes, yes, soon. I promise," Jee murmured. 

He tried not to think about how it might turn out to be a goodbye fuck, if they failed to sort this out and Zuko lost the ship. It could actually happen. They could be done, if...

Jee took a deep breath, and another, until his mind slid into the state of half-meditation that was just enough to forget troubles and get some rest. One of the Navy's most time-honored tricks. The warm pulse against his ear lulled him to sleep within moments.

* * *

Zuko was gone by the time Jee woke from his nap, and they didn't get a chance to talk throughout the evening watch or later. Zuko was either holed up in his cabin or invisible, and Jee distracted himself by making a crack at the stubborn showers with Peng. They got one of them working again, but a different one broke down right after dinner. Jee had been doused in water too many times at that point, so he gave up and went back to bed.

When he woke up with the sunrise, there were two buckets standing on his desk.

He put a bare foot on the floor without thinking, yelped at the cold, and took in a few lungfuls of hot air before padding over to the desk. The breathing also cleared up his head a bit, but even after some added blinking and head-shaking, there were still two weather-worn buckets standing next to the log book. They were filled almost to the brim with what looked to be the inventory of a very tiny pirate ship. There were some tools, and a couple of loose pipa strings, and an ink stone, and cans of polish, and a pile of spoons. There was even a single very familiar-looking slipper. 

Jee stared at the pile of knick-knacks that had disappeared out of his cabin and from his person in the last couple of months. The things he didn't recognize probably belonged to the other men. How was he supposed to return all that junk to them? Perhaps he should just leave the buckets in a corridor somewhere and pretend he had no idea where they'd come from.

Jee sat on his bed and stared at the buckets. Figuring out how to return his men's things without giving away that the Crown Prince had stolen them was very close to the top of his list of problems he'd never expected to deal with. Would anyone notice if he showed up on the bridge smelling of paint stripper? Maybe, but he was beyond caring at the moment. 

When he bent down to grope under his bunk for the bottle, he spotted Zuko's red hair tie on the floor. The brat must have forgotten he'd dropped it.

Jee took a good large swig and let the silk slide through his fingers, just the way Zuko had been doing yesterday. Well. All in all, he hadn't done that bad of a job yesterday. They were still in deep trouble, but he wasn't dead, or even slightly singed. He'd gotten his things back. He'd even earned another trophy, and more blackmail material on Zuko than he knew what to do with. The kid didn't seem to be angry with Jee. Judging by this sudden... gift... of stolen property, he might even be feeling grateful. If he knew what that word meant. Jee grinned and took another swig. 

Of course, there was the unfortunate fact that he'd never be able to look the General in the eyes again. Not without thinking _your nephew is a lying sneak and a petty criminal, and one day I'll be tying him over my bunk naked as the day he was born_. Well. Nothing to be done about that.

And the unfortunate fact that in a few months, he might find himself sailing home without...

Jee wrapped the red ribbon around his wrist before he began to dress for the day. The silk felt smooth and blissfully soft against his skin, and he'd already covered it with his shirt and arm brace by the time he realized that he'd just committed a fairly serious crime. He couldn't recall the punishment for commoners who got caught wearing silk, but it was probably no worse than the punishment for commoners who despoiled royal brats. Which, in this particular case, would most likely be sudden and swift death by lightning. There were much worse ways to go.

It was only when he walked past his desk to leave that he noticed the small package behind the bucket. Just by the oily smell, he knew what was in there before he folded away the paper. Bone crackers, but... This wasn't the pile of half-broken and half-burned experiments from yesterday. These were newly made, and perfectly crisp and golden. He ate two, stuffed the rest in his sleeve for later, and resolved not to think too much about why the brat prince had made him a snack. 

With the edge taken off his hunger, Jee started the climb up to the bridge rather than going down to breakfast. If they'd run into any trouble during the night, he'd better get it sorted out quickly; Zuko was likely to be in a filthy mood already.

"Morning," he said in answer to the mumbled greetings of the men on the bridge. Nobody jumped up to say or show something alarming. Good.

Jee considered the faint clouds of white that were drifting everywhere in sight. They were quite thick, with barely any openings in them. "Is that fog going to give us any trouble?"

Haisu looked up from his chart. "No, sir. We checked just now, and it looks like Ishihama's harbor is being upgraded. There's a complete dock with room for at least nine great warships, and a breakwater, and range lights and everything. We'll need to detour around that breakwater, but we should find our way in with our eyes closed. It won't take more than an hour and a half."

"Too easy," Lei muttered from behind the wheel. "Breakwaters. Pah."

 _You'll get a challenge sooner than you know, if we actually head to the South Pole_ , Jee thought. He squinted at the blurry outline of the port. Now that he was paying attention, he realized that it did look very different from what he remembered.

"What does this miserable place need a warship dock for?" Of course Navy command would hardly bother to keep the _Yuan_ informed of new strategies or campaigns, but Jee couldn't imagine why they'd possibly want to develop this particular port. There wasn't even anything left to fight down here.

Haisu shrugged and nodded in the direction of the bridge deck. "I don't know, sir. But you can check for yourself through the telescope."

"If you can pry Prince Sunshine away from it," Lei added.

Jee looked past Lei. Zuko was standing on the bridge deck with his back to them, back bent so he could look into the telescope. His cloak was rippling behind him like a sail.

Lei sneered at Zuko's back. "Came stomping in and snarling his own head off, he did. He looks like he hasn't slept in days. Bet you he's trying to look as ugly as possible to scare those poor buggers in Ishihama."

Haisu sucked in a loud breath, and that was the only thing that reminded Jee of what a bad idea it would be to slap Lei on the back of the head like he'd been about to do. The whiny bastard had no idea why Jee might no longer see the humor in stupid jokes about what an ugly little troll Prince Zuko was. 

Jee bit his tongue and dropped his hand. Lei looked to the side, as if he was surprised that Jee wasn't snickering along with him. 

"Carry on," Jee grumbled. He should just ignore the lot of them entirely and check what Zuko was up to now, standing around in his sleeping robes when he should be eating and making himself presentable.

A cold, wet wind hit him the moment he stepped onto the bridge deck. It wasn't strong enough to dispel the fog, but just enough to bite. Miserable southern weather.

"Good morning, sir. We'll make port in an hour and a half."

Zuko didn't react. He seemed glued to the telescope.

Jee shrugged and turned to peer at the harbor through the openings in the mist. The place had a grey and sullen air about it under the overcast sky. The burned western half of the town had finally been torn down, it looked like; the large expanse of black was almost completely covered by neat rows of red-roofed army tents. Craggy mountaintops surrounded the sprawling encampment. It looked large enough to hold several thousand men, Jee noted with some surprise.

"Ghastly place, sir," he commented. "I hope we can get that plating fixed up fast. The men aren't looking forward to making port here, and I certainly don't either." The penguins would be worse, of course, but the vast distance remaining between here and the pole somewhat limited the amount of terror they could induce. 

Still no answer. Above the eyepiece of the telescope, Zuko's frown was turning uglier by the second.

Jee found himself mimicking it as he squinted at the harbor, trying to figure out what might be so unpleasantly fascinating. There was nothing remarkable, save for the sheer number of tents and the rather impressive docks that seemed to be waiting for a small fleet of the Fire Nation's latest and greatest warships. 

For now, they were mostly empty; a few smaller vessels, patrol boats and fishing junks from the look of them, and only one great Navy steamer.

"What's that large ship, sir? It looks like a sharktiger class."

The moment he said it, he knew what Zuko was looking at. The sharktiger was a recent model, with only a few dozen out of the dry docks so far. Only the most decorated captains had received command of one of these fast, powerful new steamers. Most of them were stationed near Ba Sing Se to keep the city's silly navy from leaving its bays, or near the Northern Air Temple to make sure nothing got to or from that other nest of Water savages. 

The only sharktiger operating along the placid, boring southern coast of the Earth Kingdom was...

No.

"Sir, that's not Captain Zhao's _Taikai_ , is it?"

Zuko stepped away from the telescope. He looked like he wanted to throw everything in sight overboard, starting with Jee.

"No, it's a completely different ship! It just happens to have _Taikai_ on it in characters the size of a cow-hippo!"

The words came out along with a spray of hissing flecks of fire, and the drizzle began to evaporate over Zuko's shoulders and head in an impressive cloud of steam. No wonder. Jee was quite sure he wouldn't have kept it together either if he'd found his most despised enemy just when he was most in need of a friendly face.

Jee imagined walking up to Zhao and asking him for help with repairs and permission to sell their last remaining valuables. The very thought was so absurd and humiliating that it made him want to giggle rather than rage.

"Sir, he wouldn't sell us a cup of rice even if we were all starving and offered him his weight in gold for it. Let's sail on to Naha, we'll never get our plating here."

"No, we won't make it to the South Pole if we go all the way to Naha," Zuko snapped.

Jee fought the urge to grab Zuko by the collar and shake sense into him. "Sir, I know, but _please_ reconsider! What are you going to do? Zhao will never give you anything!"

Zuko looked him up and down. He was vibrating with fury.

"Oh, won't he?" His face twisted into a truly spectacular snarl. "I am the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, on a mission mandated by the Fire Lord himself, and anyone who hinders me is a _traitor_." 

He whirled around and stormed past Jee, back towards the bridge. 

"PREPARE TO MAKE PORT!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it was asked: bone crackers are a real thing, and delicious, especially together with beer. I can't seem to find an English recipe, but the Japanese word is 骨せんべいif anyone wants to tackle it with google translate.


	10. In which best efforts are made, part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a long, long while, and I'm very sorry for the delay. This chapter just wanted to be rewritten one billion times. It's another three-parter, to be continued soon.
> 
> Quick note: the last chapter ended with Zuko finding out that the harbor where he’s about to ask for desperately-needed supplies and repairs is currently under the command of Captain Zhao. At some point in this chapter, Zuko alludes to a past meeting between him and Zhao back when he’d only just been banished. For those who want dirty details and/or background to the subtext, that meeting is described in an already written different-trouser-leg-of-time version of _People_ , [A Tightly Woven Net](http://archiveofourown.org/works/327082). 
> 
> Many thanks for your attention, and to Amanda for a great and speedy beta. And now, it’s Zhaotime! *dodges rotten fruit*

The banging of boots on the metal steps echoed along the steep, narrow tower stairway as Jee made his way down to Zuko’s cabin. He should really be out on deck, looking unruffled and in charge in case the crew started to worry as news of an upcoming encounter with Zhao spread around the ship. But he had a feeling that Zuko might be more in need of a calming presence right now.

Or possibly in need of a good smack in the face for thinking that it was reasonable to ask that piece of rhino dung Zhao for help in getting them outfitted for an expensive South Pole expedition. Jee didn’t have much hope he could convince the brat to give up and sail on to another port, but he owed it to his men and his ship to at least try.

His knuckles had barely hit Zuko’s door when he felt a blast of flame slam into the other side of the metal.

“WHAT!?”

Jee winced and prodded the hatch. The brat really needed to stop that. Some people on this ship couldn’t touch door handles when they were white-hot. “Lieutenant Jee, sir. May I…”

“What are you doing here? Go oversee the docking!”

Jee rolled his eyes while he still could. “Our crew has docked this ship hundreds of times, sir. They don’t need hand-holding from every single officer on board. May I have a word?”

“Fine!”

Jee stepped into the cabin and immediately had to suppress a shiver. The air inside was almost boiling hot with angry firebender chi, a sharp and - for once - unpleasant contrast to the chilly air of the command tower corridor. Jee quickly closed the door again, took a good look at the scene in front of him, and blinked very carefully. 

Zuko sat crouched in front of his futon, in nothing but his pants. He hadn’t tied the laces. The waistband was slung so low that the red cloth cords of the back of his loincloth were in plain view.

Jee’s mouth wanted to say _put your ass in your pants immediately_ , like he would to any drunken crewman he encountered during shore leave on the docks. But regardless of whatever liberties he was allowed to take with Zuko’s royal person by now, the brat was still in charge of whatever went on on this ship. Zuko was definitely allowed to sit on his own cabin floor with his backside uncovered in a non-regulation manner. And besides, he looked perfectly acceptable this way.

Still.

“Sir, what are you doing?”

There was a little shadowed hollow between the lower end of Zuko’s spine and the top of the half-cross shape formed by the cotton ropes of his loincloth. It got a little darker and deeper every time Zuko straightened up, only for the cords to fit themselves to his spine again when he bent back over the mess on the futon.

“Checking my armor, what does it look like?” Zuko tossed a shoulder piece to the side, then winced when it missed the futon’s edge and clattered noisily onto the bare floor.

There was a scattering of metal and leather plating laid out on the mattress. Zuko held each piece up to the lamp light and turned it, as if he was looking for stains or spots that weren’t quite gleaming and perfect enough. His movements were quick and furious. Jee wondered how much the brat could actually be seeing. The weather outside was as gloomy as it could be, so the anemic light coming in through the red-tinted windows was barely more than a pink haze. Zuko had lit nearly all the lamps in the cabin to compensate. In Jee’s fairly expert opinion, though, the resulting light was still more fit for kissing by than for inspecting a uniform for imperfections.

Why hadn’t he commandeered a couple of crewmen to help him dress? He tended to do that when he was gearing up for a fight. Jee supposed that the ritual made him feel like a big grownup warrior.

Hmm. Good, there was the non-hostile conversation opener he’d been groping for.

“Would you like some assistance, sir?”

“I can dress myself.” Apparently satisfied with the shininess of his armor, Zuko rose to his feet and grabbed at the clothes thrown over the lid of his sea chest. He shook out a gray undershirt and began to turn it this way and that, as if he wasn’t sure which limb went where again.

The brat was so obviously shaking out of his skin with nerves that Jee could tell it wasn’t a good time for jokes. He nodded. “Of course, sir. But you’re entitled to the perks that come with your station.” Not that he gave a damn about whatever undeserved perks came with being born as a prince, but he did want an opportunity to pat a nearly-naked Zuko in broad daylight. And maybe some closeness and contact would calm him down.

“Hah!” The recalcitrant shirt looked about two moments away from catching fire. “If I demanded to be waited on by a bunch of attendants every moment of the day, you’d whine my head off about needing the men elsewhere.”

He didn’t actually sound as furious as he looked, so Jee felt safe enough to come a few steps closer.

“As would be my duty as captain, sir. We’re too few to properly crew this ship as it is. It’s my responsibility to make sure every man is where he’s supposed to be so things keep running.” He reached out and took the undershirt from Zuko’s hands. “Consider this a favor, then. Arms out.”

He almost said “a favor from a lover”, but thought better of that just in time. If he ever started thinking of the brat prince in such flowery terms, he’d have to ask Haisu to lock him in the prison hold and take over captaincy of the ship until Jee regained his sanity. That would almost certainly be more trouble than it was worth. Haisu would do a good job, no doubt, but he’d resent being forced to do actual hard work. There would be sulking. Jee hadn’t even known it was possible to deliberately and aggressively sulk _at_ another person until he’d met Haisu.

Zuko had a bit of a knack for it as well, although his sulks tended to be as short as they were fierce. He was so impatient that he rarely kept it up for long.

For the moment, he was looking rather beguiling indeed. As Jee slid the tunic's sleeve over one arm and moved around behind Zuko, his eyes wandered down the slight curve of the prince's spine, down to where the neat row of vertebrae disappeared into that shadowed little hollow between the spine and the rope of the loincloth. His fingers twitched in the soft fabric of the undershirt as he thought of trying to see just how much of his hand he could stuff under that cord before it got too tight. He barely remembered to move the empty sleeve to Zuko's other shoulder, and the shadow between the loincloth and the spine dipped again as Zuko shrugged his tunic on properly.

This ass-out-of-pants situation was getting intolerable. At this rate Zuko wouldn’t be getting to a state that was even remotely close to dressed, and they’d be docking soon.

Jee thought of Zuko being forced to confront Zhao in his underclothes, and that strengthened his resolve rather well. The only bits of the prince's skin that Zhao would ever get to see were his hands and his bald head, thank you very much.

He let his hands slide down Zuko's sides over the soft cloth now covering the muscled back. Down, down...

“Wait. Stand up a bit, sir.”

He gently took hold of the waistband of the pants. A brief tug upwards, and the garment fit snugly against Zuko’s backside.

Zuko made a small, oddly sweet noise.

“Comfortable, sir?”

“Yeah,” Zuko muttered. He cast a look at Jee over his shoulder, golden eye gleaming as the tip of his ponytail brushed along his neck in a way that he probably had no idea was alluring. Before Jee could see if he was blushing or not, though, Zuko turned back and began to fumble for the laces that were dangling down his thighs in front.

Jee smiled to himself and briefly considered trying to feel the brat up a bit more. Then he remembered what he’d come here to do.

“Sir… I object to this detour. It’s a waste of time and coal to make port at Ishihama. I don’t know why you think that Captain Zhao might give us any sort of aid.”

“Your objections are noted. We’re still going.”

The thinning fabric of the tunic stretched tight over Zuko's backbone as he began to do up the frog latches in front. Jee couldn’t resist running his hand down the prince’s back to smoothen out some nonexistent creases. The shirt was too small, and it covered the finely toned muscles underneath like a second skin.

“Sir, there really is no reason to think that… This will not work. You’ll just have a huge fight with Zhao, and then he might not even want to sell us some basic provisions. And…”

Zuko raised a warning hand. The air above it was shimmering a little.

"I made up my mind!" He snatched up his skirt guard from the futon, tried to lace it up behind his back, and cursed when one of the worn ties slipped through his fingers. “Lieutenant, if you’re here to assist me, then assist me instead of wasting my time with babbling.”

"Yes, sir," Jee sighed. He took the leather skirt from Zuko’s hands, looped it around his waist a little higher, and began to connect the ties. There were two more than on his own skirt guard.

Now that he was paying attention to it, nearly all visible parts of Zuko’s armor seemed to be not just more finely made, but also more intricate to piece together than regular armor. Maybe the whole thing really was intended to be put on by attendants instead of the person wearing it.

Jee gave Zuko’s biceps an affectionate squeeze before he left the warmth of the prince's back and walked over to the sea chest to pick up the next layer. This was starting to feel like a small project of its own. He hadn’t been called upon to help an officer dress since he was about Zuko’s age.

He helped the prince into his overtunic - again, much better made than his own, with finer stitches and an extra layer of padding to keep the edges of the breastplate from digging into his sides. Everything Zuko owned seemed to be so worn it looked likely to rip in a gust of wind, too small on him, or both, but they were still very nice clothes. It was always hard to keep from resenting the higher officers for all those stupid little things they had to make their life easier. Jee supposed he should be thankful for anything that kept that lovely skin smooth and unchafed for him to enjoy, though.

Now he was standing right in front of Zuko, so close he'd barely have to move to steal a kiss. It was a struggle for Jee not to look into the prince's eyes as he fit the broad leather belt around Zuko's waist. He could feel the other's warm, warm breath on his neck. Nothing good could come of eye contact right now.

He began to tighten the belt, then stopped short for a moment when he realized that the leather had several extra holes punched through it. The belt felt tight enough by the second extra puncture. There were four more, and all but the last one had their leather edges pushed inwards in a way that indicated real use.

It looked like Zuko had been wearing this exact same belt since he’d come on board. Had the brat ever been that scrawny? Truly? It looked like it, but Jee was having trouble remembering.

He did have a vague recollection of the General complaining that his little nephew would be taller than him soon, somewhere at the start of their journey. Zuko towered almost a full head over his uncle now. Towering over the General wasn’t very hard, but still. Maybe Zuko had seemed bigger than he really was in the beginning, with the armor and the shouting and the attitude.

Jee shrugged. Wishing that he’d started paying attention to Zuko sooner wouldn’t be any use.

"Sir, how are you planning to convince Zhao to give you the plating?” He crouched on one knee and held out the left boot. “Foot, sir.”

Zuko kicked rather than inserted his foot into the boot. “He doesn’t have to give me anything, I’m paying for it with good money.”

“Yes, sir. I meant, how are you going to convince him to give you permission to make that money? If he says you can’t sell your scrolls or your dagger in Ishihama, then you can’t. You’d be committing a crime. And people probably won’t even want to deal with you.”

“I’m their crown prince,” Zuko snapped.

Colonists weren’t very likely to be impressed by that, especially if they’d been in the Earth Kingdom and far away from the royal family for a few generations. A lot of them barely seemed to remember they even had a Fire Lord. Bao, scullion Sen, and Shi were all born colonials who’d never lived on the home islands for more than a few months at a time in between assignments. They’d been noticeably less impressed by the General and Zuko than the other crew members in the beginning. But only in the beginning; they’d learned to respect General Iroh soon, and to fake respect for the prince if only for the sake of their eardrums.

Bao’s so-called respect was definitely still fake, but Sen seemed to find Zuko tolerable enough, and Shi seemed to actually like the brat sometimes. It was probably the rhino thing. If Shi was too stupid to be scared of giant black monsters that could gore him any second, he was probably too stupid to be wary of Zuko. It had to be that. There was no way Zuko would have managed to establish some kind of real, human rapport with anyone from the crew.

“Yes, sir, you’re their crown prince. But you’ll be gone again in a few days, and Zhao is probably staying longer. The people in Ishihama will be afraid he’ll take revenge if they assist you without his consent.”

Zuko just snorted.

Jee tightened his grip on Zuko's ankle and calf as he finished fitting the boot. “Sir, you should at least think of what you’re going to say. Don’t just storm in and demand things. He’ll refuse, and then you need to convince him without letting him find out about your money problems. You can’t let him discover how much trouble you’re really in.”

Zuko’s frown turned thoughtful. “How do you even know how Zhao’s going to react?”

Jee shrugged and picked up the other boot. “I know the man, sir. I was on his ship for two years. Foot?”

Zuko blinked. "You served on Zhao's ship?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why would you go _there_?"

Because most people in the world didn’t get to pick and choose what they did and where they went. He poked Zuko in the shin with the toe of the second boot, none too gently. "It's where they assigned me, sir. It's not like I wanted to be there. _Foot_."

"Stop that." Zuko glared as he extended his leg, but he still looked more fascinated than annoyed. "What was it like on Zhao’s ship?"

"Bad."

Jee ignored the curious stare boring into the top of his head and began to fold the hem of Zuko’s right pants leg so it could be inserted neatly into the boot. They usually didn’t bother to go quite this far with the clothing regulations, but this was a special occasion. And Jee wanted to drag things out a bit just in case he could still convince Zuko to turn the ship around and pass Zhao by. The Navy was a great place to be if you wanted to drag something out. There were always more half-forgotten customs and rules to suddenly take an interest in, if you were really bored or really eager to look busy.

"Sir, how well do you know Zh… Captain Zhao?"

Zuko’s brow creased. “He’s related to my great-aunts somehow. And he used to dine with us in the palace every now and again. But he always talked with my sister, not me.”

The thought of Zhao taking an interest in a girl made Jee want to shudder in sympathetic horror. Poor Princess Azula.

“Maybe he was hoping for a betrothal, sir. I bet he’d like nothing more than to marry into the royal family.”

Zuko looked like all the ghosts of his ancestors had just passed straight through him. “Agni, I hope not.”

Imagine having Zhao as a brother-in-law. Jee patted Zuko’s thigh and returned to conjuring straight lines out of obstinately rounded folds of fabric.

“I only really talked to him once,” Zuko suddenly added, in a strangely quiet tone of voice. “To Zhao. He was at the Oka Monastery when I went there to search the library for clues about the Avatar. Right after we started out, remember?”

It took some serious digging for Jee to summon any memories of that outing. He didn’t actually have much to recall. They’d passed close to the Oka Monastery only once, shortly after their departure from the Fire Nation; it had been their next stop after the Western Air Temple. The ship had simply stayed in harbor, or what passed for a harbor in the spirit-forsaken northern reaches of the Earth Kingdom. Zuko had insisted on climbing to the monastery alone. Even the General hadn’t been allowed to come. The only reason the old man had let Zuko go was that the brat had been on his feet for a week with no sign of the infection in his face returning, even if the burn still looked wet and absolutely disgusting.

If they’d known that Zuko would run into Zhao during his outing alone, though… They were lucky the bastard hadn’t gobbled their little commander up for a dinner appetizer.

“You never told us you’d met Captain Zhao there, sir.” Well, he wouldn’t have. Those had been the days when Zuko didn’t talk to anyone at all, except to bark orders. If the brat had gotten knifed in the back during one of his outings to monastery libraries or scroll collections, they wouldn’t have found out about it until he keeled over and they found a gaping hole between his ribs.

Jee gave Zuko's right knee a small farewell squeeze before moving his hands to the other leg. “What did you talk about with Zhao, sir?”

“Just things. My mission.” Zuko looked a little surprised, as if he wasn’t quite sure he was remembering things right. “He was interested. He didn’t say it was impossible. He said there are many spirits… many things that are still hiding from us.”

Jee shook his head in confusion as he began to fold the hem of the left pants leg into its boot. “That’s pointless talk, sir. He was probably trying to butter you up.”

Although Jee couldn’t quite think of why Zhao would bother. If the bastard thought there was even a shred of a chance that Zuko might be in a position of power again someday, he wouldn’t take so much pleasure in antagonizing the brat like he’d been doing for the past few years.

“It was good to hear. Back then, I wasn’t sure if…” Zuko’s voice had gone very soft. “Uncle kept saying I had to give up. Nobody else wanted to say I could do it. Find the Avatar. Nobody said I could do it, except…”

Jee looked up. He couldn't make out Zuko's expression very well from this angle, but he could see that the prince had closed his eyes.

“It was good to hear,” Zuko repeated.

Jee didn't know what to say. He folded the fingers of both hands around the knee in front of him and held on for a moment, feeling the bones in front and the soft hollow in the back, just because he wanted to.

“What was Captain Zhao doing in that library, sir?”

“Looking for information about spirits,” Zuko said at once. Then he frowned in concentration. “…Fish spirits?”

Zhao had been looking for information on fish spirits? Zuko’s already strange brain must have been more fever-addled back than he’d been admitting. Jee couldn’t quite think of a polite way to word that, so he said nothing.

The look on Zuko’s face was just as confused, but it was tinged with a strange sadness.

“He didn’t mock me.” He grimaced. “I don’t know why he suddenly hated me after that.”

“Don’t look for a reason, sir. The man is just…” How could he explain this? _It’s not you, he just likes watching you try to fight back?_

Zuko’s frown had turned distinctly unhappy. “I never did anything to him.”

“I believe you, sir.” Jee let his left hand linger on the knee and reached up with the right, wrapping his fingers tightly around Zuko’s own. “Sir, listen to me. I think I have quite a bit of experience dealing with the man. You have to be very, very careful when you ask him for anything.”

A pulse of warmth throbbed in Zuko’s fingertips. He didn’t try to shake Jee's hand off, though.

“Careful of what?”

“You’ll never get anything from him without him trying to make you pay for it three times over, sir. And he’ll try to wind you up so you’ll slip up and give him a stick he can beat you with.” Jee tightened his grip. “You have to go in there knowing exactly what you can agree to and what not, or he’ll trick you. Think very hard before you react to anything he says. He’ll twist all sorts of innocent things into insults just to make you mad. You know that, sir, he tries it every time he comes on board.”

A thoughtful look crossed Zuko’s face.

“Was that what he was doing when he was on board last time? When you punched him?”

Jee sighed. He’d been trying to forget about that. Not one of his best moments.

“Yes, sir. I know he’s just trying to make me mad, and I still keep falling for it.” He gave Zuko’s fingers a last squeeze and drew away, rising to his feet so he could put some distance between the two of them. He didn’t enjoy talking about his failures.

"What exactly did Zhao tell you back then?"

Oh, come on. "You've asked me this, sir," Jee muttered.

When he shifted his gaze to the side a bit, Zuko took a step in the same direction. He looked like he wanted to bite his lip.

"And you didn't answer. What did he tell you, Lieutenant?"

"Sir..."

 _Koh and all his descendants…_ Jee turned away to pick up Zuko’s breastplate and give himself a moment to think of a way to derail the conversation. Nothing came to mind.

Especially since it was so understandable how the brat was still worried about what Zhao might have said about him. Jee really, truly sympathized. Zhao was almost impossible to just ignore or forget about. The smirking sack of dung was so very good at digging under people's skin and leaving a dozen tiny barbs that would fester over time. It had taken Jee well over a year on Zhao’s ship to stop taking every insult to heart, and he still slipped up sometimes.

No, he couldn’t fault a mere boy for being unable to let go of Zhao’s insinuations. He just didn’t know how to reassure Zuko that it was mostly hot air.

"Sir, the reason I lost my temper was that he was speaking lies about you. There was nothing in there that you need to worry about. Forget about it and concentrate on the matter at hand.”

Zuko’s frown curled for a moment. Then he brought his hands together in a quick, informal salute.

"Your loyalty is appreciated." He crossed his arms again before Jee had time to register the highly unusual gesture of respect. "But I want to know what he told you. About me. Stop stalling and tell me the truth."

"It was just insults, sir. Nothing I want to repeat to you. Can you raise your arms a bit?" He fit the breastplate over Zuko’s shoulders and ducked behind him to start tying the front and back plates together. Not that he really needed to be at Zuko’s back for that, but it was a nice excuse to get away from the suspicious glare.

Zuko was having none of it; he twisted his neck so he could eyeball Jee over his shoulder, and he was looking more stubborn by the second.

"Lieutenant, I'm not asking if you feel like telling me. I'm _ordering_ you to tell me."

All right, if it was an _order_. The brat was tough enough to take a punch, and Jee was also tough enough to take a punch if Zuko suddenly forgot that he appreciated honesty.

"He said you got burned because of your own incompetence. That you acted like a coward," Jee said, speaking to Zuko's shoulder. He kept his eyes on the thin cords of the breastplate slipping through his fingers. _Loop, twist, knot._ "That you begged and cried, and dishonored yourself."

Zuko just stared at him. He looked halfway between horrified and relieved.

"He didn't say any more than that?"

"No, that was it, sir." _Loop, twist, knot._

He couldn't possibly tell Zuko that Zhao had made lewd suggestions about him. No sixteen-year-old in the process of discovering sex deserved to be made aware that he was featuring in Zhao's fantasies. Or more aware than strictly necessary, in this case - Zhao had been so obvious in his interest that Zuko couldn’t possibly have missed it.

“Sir, I know it was all lies," Jee said a little too loudly as he reached for the armor's shoulder flaps, keeping one tucked under his arm while he tied the other. "He always does that, making vague insinuations about people so that everything sounds ten times as bad as it was. I’ve seen him do it plenty of times.”

But Zuko had closed his eyes again and was holding both hands to his mouth. He looked like he hadn’t heard a word Jee had said.

“I thought he’d blabbed all about…”

Jee paused in the middle of tying the second shoulder flap and stared at Zuko's profile. “About what, sir?”

Zuko’s good eye popped open wide.

“Nothing!” His voice actually jumped, as if he was still thirteen and barely breaking into his man’s tones. He looked about as innocent as the pikemen did whenever Jee caught them talking about the nonexistent paint stripper still that was most certainly not hidden anywhere in the _Yuan_ ’s prison hold.

Jee sighed. _If you had any idea how much of a child you are…_

He picked up the broad metal shoulder guard and lifted it over Zuko’s head. “Sir, for the love of the sun in the sky, just tell me what happened back then. I know it can’t have been half as bad as that liar said.”

Zuko blinked up at him, and for just a moment, Jee would have sworn the brat looked afraid.

Maybe he’d gone too far. Maybe he shouldn’t… The General had warned him not to pry.

Then Zuko’s signature twisted, furious frown slammed back into place.

"This topic is closed," he snapped. He grabbed the shoulder guard from Jee’s hands and put it over his head himself.

Without even thinking about it, Jee began to work on the shoulder guard’s ties. What had he said? Maybe if he came at it from another direction, worded things a bit more carefully…

“Sir… What Captain Zhao said was... vague. And ridiculous. He was just making stupid insinuations." He watched as Zuko stuffed his left hand through an arm brace hard enough that he looked likely to snap the ties. "Why don't you explain to me what really happened, sir? So I can stomp down on things if he tries to spread rumors about you again?"

"There’s nothing you need to know," Zuko said. He jerked at the ties of one brace, pulling them so tight that Jee could see it hurt. "It was years ago. I was incompetent and cowardly and stupid, but I'm not anymore. I worked hard, and I learned. Now I'm strong. And the next time I'm tested, it will be against the Avatar, and I won't fail again."

He balled his fist, as if he was testing that the brace was indeed tight enough to cut off his circulation and make his hand fall off in a couple of hours.

“And I won’t fail today.”

Jee blinked. That had actually been an impressive speech, for Zuko.

“Sir, I apologize.” He paused until Zuko’s glare began to inch towards something softer, then held out his hand. “Allow me? That brace is too tight, sir. You could be blocking your chi paths.”

After a moment, Zuko sighed and put his wrist on Jee’s fingers.

Gently, Jee untied the brace and wiggled it until it settled properly, edge higher up so that it couldn’t dig into any bony ends. When he was done, he picked up the second brace and fit it around Zuko’s other arm.

“Here you go, sir. While you’re talking to Zhao, I’ll go find Ishihama’s quartermaster and discuss our supplies and that plating. That way everyone will be ready to get started as soon as you have permission to sell your things, and we can finish our business here as soon as possible.”

Dealing with surly quartermasters was usually Haisu’s job. Jee thought he might want an excuse to be off the ship, in the camp, and close by while Zuko was there to talk with Zhao, though. No doubt the General could keep both Zhao and his nephew in check if things went pear-shaped, but still. More firepower close by never hurt.

Jee began to withdraw his hand from Zuko's arm brace so he could take a few steps back and admire the view. He'd seen Zuko in uniform every day for the past two and a half years, but now that he'd put those clothes on the brat, they looked different on him. Tighter.

He froze in place when Zuko’s fingers clutched at his wrist.

“Come with me.”

Jee blinked. “Sir?”

Zuko looked a little pale all of a sudden. “I’ll tell Uncle to prepare the ship for supplying. I can’t have him there together with Zhao, he doesn’t know why I have to sell things to pay for the plating.” He took a deep breath. “You’ll come with me. I can’t go to a meeting without an escort. I need to remind Zhao who I am.”

Jee blinked again. He’d assumed the General would go along to at least discourage Zhao from getting too carried away with his insults. The mere thought of actually having to meet Zhao himself, in person, made Jee want to slink back to his cabin and hide under the desk.

“Sir, you still have a little time before we dock. You should just tell your uncle about…”

Zuko’s hand shot into the air again.

“No! Besides, I have to stop relying on Uncle for everything. My father wants me to do things by myself.” He frowned and drew himself up, tugging at one brace as if it wasn’t perfectly straight and tight yet. “I’ll do the talking. You don’t interfere, just…” He hesitated, and now Jee definitely wasn’t imagining the sour edge of worry and fear in his voice.

Jee inclined his head. A round of desperate negotiations with someone known for being devious and ruthless had to be a frightening thing to look forward to, even for insane royal brats who had no concept of danger whatsoever. Sometimes you just needed to know there was someone friendly standing at your back.

“All right, sir. I’ll go with you.”

“Good.” Zuko sighed and withdrew his hand.

His fingertips lingered on Jee's palm, though. And a phantom tightness around Jee's wrist remained, as if Zuko’s grip had been so strong that it took a moment to fade.

Then Jee realized it was the still-unfamiliar feeling of Zuko’s hair tie wrapped around his arm, hidden under the arm brace. He’d thought of it as a trophy of sorts when he put it on, a memento of what the crown prince had let him do. Now it felt like a reminder of a promise he didn’t even remember making.

He’d never thought Zuko might actually trust him enough to lean on him instead of his old uncle.

The thought made heat pulse through Jee’s hand, and Zuko’s fingers curled around the invisible ball of warmth as his fire wrapped itself around Jee’s on pure instinct. Jee opened his mouth a little as he let his chi yield to the pressure, enjoying the contrast of Zuko’s callused fingers and the warm, reaching fire within them. He didn’t want to let go. Not even to step back and admire his handiwork. He could admire it from up close just as well.

There was still some time until they docked. The engines were still thrumming steady, barely slowing down. Probably only minutes, but minutes was enough to teach the brat a new trick, give him a small taste of how to use his fire to make out without even touching. They could both use a calming distraction.

“Don’t push back. Don’t block. Yield,” Jee whispered as he kept up the pressure on Zuko’s skin, nudging the inside of the prince’s hand with a thumb wrapped in fire. “I want to show you something.”

Fingers twitched as Jee’s fire rasped over the delicate skin of Zuko’s palm, testing, feeling for the other’s chi underneath.

“Lieutenant. What are you doing?”

“Taking control of your chi, sir.”

Zuko looked a little dazed, but the way his fire suddenly pulsed in anger was unmistakable.

“I said I didn’t want you to do that.”

“Let me try,” Jee whispered. “Three heartbeats. Give me three heartbeats, and then I’ll stop if you say so. You’ll like it.”

_Trust me._

“Why would you want to do that?”

“You’ll like it,” Jee repeated. “It’s different from when you make your own fire move. Someone else will do things with your chi that you never even thought of. Unexpected things.” He shifted his free hand on Zuko’s thigh, putting some pressure on the brat’s groin through the layers of fabric and leather. “It’s like the difference between pleasuring yourself and having another man’s hands on you.” 

Not to mention that taking control of someone’s fire felt damn good. The sense of power that came with it was more than just control; it was domination. Almost like holding a bender’s beating heart in your hand, if you took it to extremes that Jee had experienced only a few times in his whole life.

Zuko didn’t reply, but after a few seconds, his frown began to ease.

“All right, just a bit.” He was clearly trying to sound a lot more distrustful than he felt.

Good boy.

The resistance under Jee’s pressing finger fell away, melted like candle wax. Jee sighed as he felt his fire sink into the familiar-yet-not texture of chi he’d only ever tasted and touched, never truly moved.

He gripped at the other’s energy and gave it a little push to the side. 

Zuko’s fingers jerked. 

“Oh,” he breathed. “That’s strange.”

But not bad, or he’d have no trouble making his displeasure clear. Jee smiled and began to move the fire under Zuko’s skin around his palm in a slowly widening spiral.

“Watch and learn,” He whispered.

It took a few more moments of testing, of adjusting to the feel of the fire in his grip, before Jee felt confident enough to go further. It always paid to be careful at first, to hold on gently.

He curled his fingers into Zuko’s trembling hand and glanced up. The brat was biting his lip.

“More?”

Zuko released his lower lip. “More,” he exhaled.

The shivering intensified as Jee pulled the fire along the sensitive underside of Zuko’s arm, a long and slow caress under the skin while Jee’s finger ran ahead along the arm brace. 

When he was halfway up the brace, he lifted his fingertips from the metal and let them hover in the air. He didn’t release Zuko’s fire but kept it moving instead, kneading the chi along the strong muscles of his arm with steady, firm strokes.

“You’re not even touching me,” Zuko said, voice soft with wonder and lack of breath.

Jee smiled. “I can do this from across the room. Think about the possibilities.”

Zuko blinked, and a shard of worry sharpened his eyes.

“Just like that?”

Jee shook his head. “Not unless you let me. It’s insanely hard to take control of someone’s fire unless they welcome you in.”

Hard, but not impossible. Jee would never forget that one night the first year in the Navy, when he’d woken up with the older sailor he’d insulted earlier sitting on his back and his fire being jerked around in all directions. It had happened only the once, but he’d needed over half a year to re-learn how to sleep without clutching a knife. Longer to start trusting his own flame again.

No need to tell Zuko about any of that, though. He was safe here. There was no need to worry him.

“Try it,” Jee urged, offering up his own palm.

Zuko’s fingers touched his skin as softly as if he was trying to stroke a newborn turtleduck.

“I just push?”

“Just push, and feel around until you sense my fire like your own,” Jee nodded. “Go on. I’ll let you in.”

Zuko screwed up his face in concentration and took a deep breath, and for one instant, Jee felt afraid - he could shake the brat off if he went too roughly, but it would _hurt_ and…

Warm fire slid through his own like fingers through oil, smooth, easy. It began to move around almost at once. A little too abruptly, but that was clearly from enthusiasm rather than intent to harm, so Jee decided to tolerate it. Zuko would find out how to grip Jee’s fire soon enough, and then…

The thought was barely even formed when Jee felt his fire still, then twist entirely outside of his own volition along with the movement of Zuko’s fingers. 

Zuko’s eyes lit up. He kept still for a moment, then began to brush his fingers over Jee’s palm in a slightly cruder imitation of the spiral Jee had drawn earlier.

Jee sighed in pleasure as his own energy was pulled along his muscles, firmly but not too hard. That was better. That was just right.

“Good. You’re good at that, sir,” he whispered.

Zuko looked surprised. “I am?”

“Yes. You got it very fast.” Jee tried not to make any undignified sounds as he felt his chi sparking, pulling over and through his flesh in ways he could never make it flow by himself. If the brat realized Jee was ticklish, he’d try to torment him with it non-stop.

Then Zuko’s fingers broke contact, and Jee couldn’t hold back a noise of regret.

“Don’t try to do it without touching yet, sir.　You’ll lose control, it’s hard enough to do it even with skin contact at fir…”

He stopped when he felt his fire jump under his skin, up towards Zuko’s raised hand.

“I’ve still got it,” Zuko said. His voice was thick with pride, and his good eye was wide with wonder and curiosity. He’d obviously forgotten all about the bad day he was about to have.

But he did still have control over Jee’s fire. Impressive. “All right. Move slowly, don’t pull too hard…”

Zuko’s fingers curled in the air, as if he was digging in to prepare for some sort of jump. Then he flipped his hand over.

An instant later, a small flame bloomed on his fingertip. The brat looked as pleased as a toddler who’d built a tower out of sticks.

“Look, that’s your chi! I made fire out of it.”

Little show-off. Jee couldn’t help but smile, though. “I can see that. Not bad, sir. Not bad at all.” It had taken Jee ages to learn how to make another’s chi bloom into actual flame instead of just manipulating it. It was a little annoying how Zuko seemed to be discovering it right away. Maybe Jee was just an excellent teacher, though.

Zuko didn’t smile, but his face looked uncharacteristically gentle in the soft light of the little fire. He cupped it with his other hand as if to protect it from some nonexistent breeze.

“I’m usually not very good at firebending things. It always takes me weeks to get something new right in training,” he said. His voice had gone low and careful.

“Some kinds of bending just come easier to some people, sir. This…” Playing, warming, sharing fire… there wasn’t actually a name for it, as far as Jee knew. “…is nothing like combat bending.”

“Even I can manage the easy stuff.” Zuko didn’t look as despondent as he sounded. His fingers were moving up and down in a slow, almost flowing pattern, so that the little flame could roll over them. Left to right, right to left, smooth and controlled.

Look at him. The General had been right. Giving praise _did_ motivate the brat to do better. 

“This isn’t easier than fighting, sir. It’s just something else.”

A ghost of a smile passed over Zuko’s face. “It takes a sweeter fire to warm a lover than to strike an enemy.”

Jee blinked in surprise. 

“…Yes. That’s it.” The brat prince had turned out to be a lot chattier than expected, once he was comfortable, but insightful proverbs weren’t usually among the things that came out of his mouth.

His disbelief must have shown on his face, because Zuko grinned, very briefly. “Uncle said that once. He was trying to convince me to blow fire bubbles.” He shrugged. “I didn’t. It sounded useless.”

A smile tugged at Jee’s lips. The General was a patient teacher, but he didn’t have much actual experience instructing young firebenders beyond his son and his nephew. Jee had guided hundreds of young recruits through their basic training. He knew a thing or two about motivating teenagers.

“Not so useless now that it turns out you can use fire for sex, eh?”

Zuko didn’t say anything. He copied Jee’s grin, though.

The expression made Jee’s mind flash back to that bizarre moment when they’d stood facing each other in the corridor outside the showers, in perfect silence, and he’d suddenly realized that the brat prince was trying to mimic his expressions and actions. Trying to learn from him.

He was _still_ doing it, and it was still baffling and oddly adorable.

The warm rush of fondness that swept through Jee’s chest took him completely by surprise. It didn’t quite dissipate, even when he gave himself a stern reminder of exactly how annoying this creature was when he wasn’t half-naked and moaning for Jee’s touch.

He patted Zuko’s breastplate, enjoying the tickle of fire that jumped under his touch. “I’m glad you’re having fun, sir. But be careful not to do this around your uncle.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a small thing, but a powerful bender can still sense that someone’s doing strange bending close by unless you know how to make it feel accidental.” Jee drew three fingers across the breastplate, drawing Zuko’s fire along under his skin, from one nipple to the other. “People usually don’t go toying with each other’s fire unless they’re intimate. There’s only one possible reason why we’d do this.”

A shrug. “Then tell me how to make it feel accidental.”

“So you can play fire footsie right under your esteemed uncle’s nose?”

One corner of Zuko’s mouth curled up. Jee was starting to recognize the nuances of that half-smirk; this one was a harbinger of spectacular and very un-royal misbehavior.

“Would that be bad, Lieutenant?”

Just when Jee began to consider the wisdom of simply grabbing the brat by his belt and pushing him over his sea chest, the ear-splitting rattle of the anchor being lowered reverberated through the ship. A few moments later, the floor began to shudder as their old, creaking hunk of metal came to a halt.

The faint but very becoming blush that had been coloring Zuko’s good cheek disappeared in the blink of an eye, along with the flame on his fingers.

“Enough. It’s time to go.”

“Sir…”

“ _What?_ ”

Jee put a hand on the back of Zuko’s neck and kissed him, briefly but firmly. The brat tasted scared.

Jee squeezed the side of his neck. “Sir. If things go wrong today, we’ll think of something else. It won’t be the end of the world.”

Zuko stared at him, eyes wide and fiercely determined, and just a little pleading.

“I will _not_ fail.”

Jee almost shook his head as he tried to think of something to say. There was just no way he could see for Zuko to win this one, and Jee didn’t believe in giving people false hope. It was pointless and cruel.

But he leaned in and pressed another soft kiss in the middle of Zuko’s forehead. “You won’t fail, sir.”

When he drew back, Zuko had closed his eyes. He nodded, but it was more of a nervous jerk of his neck than a deliberate movement. 

Then he pursed his lips together, took a deep breath through his nose, and shook off Jee’s hand. “Let’s go.”

The deck was already in a state of controlled chaos by the time they walked out, with their few officers shouting orders as men cast down lines and prepared to lower the bow ramp. The drizzle had petered out to something that was more like mist flowing downwards, but the wind was still harsh and biting. Miserable Earth Kingdom coasts. The home islands would be covered in autumn leaves in all shades of red and gold by now, and the weather would still be balmy enough to sleep outside without a fire. Sometimes Jee really did understand Zuko’s almost pathetic eagerness to go home.

Ishihama’s docks were no more attractive up close than from far away. They did look surprisingly busy. The camp they’d observed from the ship was downright impressive; there was no end to the rows of red tents, and there was movement everywhere, with people walking very fast up and down the docks and in the camp itself. There were even rail tracks running along the main dock now.

Haisu appeared next to them and bowed to Zuko.

“Docked and ramp down, sir,” he said, quite unnecessarily. “Do we need anything special from the harbor’s quartermaster, sir?”

Zuko shook his head, sharply and only once.

“Stay on board while I talk to Captain Zhao. I’m taking Lieutenant Jee. Prepare the ship for supplying under the direction of my uncle, and don’t visit the quartermaster until I return.”

Haisu bowed, and if there was anything questioning in the look his shot Jee, it was too brief to be noticeable. “Yes, sir.” A slightly puzzled frown made his forehead wrinkle. “Sir, we’ve been taking a close look at the town while we were sailing in. We’ve seen only a handful of civilians. It’s nearly all Navy and Army now.”

Zuko frowned and peered along the harbor. He nodded towards the cluster of smaller wooden boats at the end of the farthest dock. “Then whose fishing junks are those over there?”

“Those are Kyoshi sails, sir, not from around here. They probably just came to trade. There’s a good current between here and the island.”

“I didn’t know we were so friendly with Kyoshi these days,” Jee interjected.

Haisu made a motion that would have been an informal shrug if Zuko hadn’t been standing there.

“I think Ishihama was their favorite mainland trading partner until the rebellion chased off all the dirt grubbers, sir. The Kyoshi stayed away for a bit after that, but I suppose Fire Nation gold is just as heavy as anybody else’s. There’s an Earth Kingdom port right across from the island, but I’ve heard they can’t trade there. Some sort of feud…” 

“That’s Chin Village. Avatar Kyoshi killed their leader, Chin the Conqueror,” Zuko said.

“Thank you, sir,” Haisu said after a moment. Jee had no idea why the man looked so surprised. Zuko had probably read and memorized everything there was to read about every Avatar who ever lived.

“They like Avatar things on Kyoshi Island,” Zuko murmured. “I need to visit there and search…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. Maybe he’d remembered that he didn’t exactly have the money for side trips anymore.

Jee caught Haisu’s questioning look and nodded to indicate that yes, he had talked to Prince Zuko about the finances and no, this wasn’t the time and place to bring it up. They could argue about it some more once they knew what Zhao would or wouldn’t allow them to buy and sell in Ishihama.

Apparently news of Zhao’s presence in the harbor had already spread; the crew seemed a good deal less enthusiastic than they usually were at the prospect of reaching land. The volume of the chatter on deck was low and cautious, as if the men thought that something might explode if they talked too loudly. None of them looked actually happy to be in port again. The visible lack of bars and brothels along the docks was no doubt dampening their spirits as well.

Jee waited until Haisu limped away to deal with some affair with a chain and a hammer that Bao was clearly screwing up, then cleared his throat. 

“Sir, you’ll definitely have trouble selling your scrolls and your knife if there are so few civilian merchants there.”

“I know. I’ll figure something out.” Zuko’s eyes were fixed on the encampment, hard and set.

“Have you thought of what to say to Zhao, sir? He’ll drive a hard bargain.”

“I know, shut up already.” Zuko squeezed his eyes shut. He looked like he was producing a headache now to spare himself the trouble of doing it later.

“Sir!” Shi came trotting up to them. “Permission to go ashore and exercise the rhinos, sir?”

Zuko cast an almost-desperate look in the direction of the stairs to the hold, as if he wanted nothing more than to leave Zhao hanging and just take his bloodthirsty monster for a few laps around the docks. The rhino riders held races sometimes. Those games seemed to be one of the very few things in life that Zuko actively enjoyed. Not that he ever said so, but they could tell he was having fun by how he kept agreeing to race even though his barely-grown rhino nearly always lost to Shi’s bigger and fitter beast.

Zuko shook his head. “Wait until we return. We may have to leave in a hurry.”

“Yes, sir.” Shi bowed. “But sir, can I go ashore and find the camp’s rhino handlers? I’m out of herbs for Blossom, and she’s about to go into heat. We’ll have a crazy circus in our hold by next week if we can’t distract the others’ noses.”

“Blossom?” It was out before Jee could help himself.

Shi looked vaguely embarrassed, but Zuko shot Jee a baleful look. “That’s his rhino. I told you they have names, Lieutenant, are you deaf?” He turned back to Shi. “Pikeman, we may not be able to buy any sort of medicine for the rhinos for a long time after we leave here. Go ashore and get…”

If this was going to turn into a discussion about rhino mating habits, Jee wasn’t about to stand still for it and possibly hear something that could never be unheard. He’d only just started pacing half-purposefully in the direction of the stairs to the hold when General Iroh intercepted him.

“Lieutenant, a word?”

“Sir.” Jee sketched a bow and followed the General as he took a few steps to the side, just far enough to be out of earshot of Zuko.

“The first mate tells me you’ll be accompanying Prince Zuko to Captain Zhao in my stead?” The old man’s voice was pitched to blend in with the din from the docks.

Jee inclined his head. “Yes, sir.”

The General looked confused. “Is my nephew angry with me?”

“Not that I know of, sir.” Jee shook his head.

The old man raised his eyebrows. “Ah. Well. He is at that age where being followed around by a guardian at all times begins to feel like an embarrassment, I suppose…”

Jee kept quiet.

The General sighed and began to stroke his beard.

“Lieutenant, I need you to keep a close eye on Prince Zuko. He left the royal court when he was only a child. He’s no fool, but Captain Zhao’s level of skill with words is far beyond him. The captain may try to deceive him.” He cast an unreadable look in the direction of the command tent, peaking high above the rest in the sea of red tarps lining Ishihama’s docks.

“Yes, sir,” Jee said. “Though I’m not certain what I could do, sir. I’m not allowed to interrupt while my superiors are speaking.”

The General nodded. “Your presence in and of itself should be a deterrent. Captain Zhao will know you’ll inform me if he treats my nephew badly, and I do believe he still has some respect for me left.”

Jee wasn’t so sure about that, but he was sure that he was liking this day less and less. “Understood, sir.”

“Lieutenant, we’re leaving!” Zuko hollered.

Jee inclined his head towards the General. “Sir.”

Suddenly, the General’s fingers closed on Jee’s arm with the strength of three men. 

“Don’t leave him alone out there. Not even for a moment.”

Jee blinked. 

“I won’t, sir.”

The grip on his elbow disappeared. “I will arrange things here so we can leave fast, if necessary. Return as soon as you can. And good luck.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

The bustle on the main dock was even more impressive once they were actually in the middle of it. The noise was unbelievable. Trolleys were racing up and down the rail tracks as fast as their handlers could push them, and Jee would have feared for his toes if most of the hand-carts moving alongside the tracks weren’t being diverted in a rough semicircle around them by the force of Zuko’s nasty glare.

They’d barely managed to clear the chaos and reach the tent line when a young officer came hurrying towards them. He wasn’t quite running, but it was close. He didn’t look pleased to see them; there was a nervous twitch going on in his left eyebrow.

“Prince Zuko!” The man’s bow, at least, was perfectly respectful. “Captain Zhao is honored by your unexpected visit. He asks what brings you to…”

“I have urgent business with Captain Zhao,” Zuko interrupted. “Take me to him.”

The officer didn’t look fazed. He bowed again and extended an inviting hand towards the large command tent that stood a short walk to the east. “As you wish, Your Highness. Captain Zhao is in an important meeting elsewhere, but he will join you in half an hour at the most. Allow me to escort you to…”

Zuko’s frown darkened, and Jee tried not to grin. He almost wanted to make some warning signs at the poor man. Almost.

“I am the crown prince. Captain Zhao will make time in his busy schedule for me immediately.”

Now a hint of desperation was creeping into the officer’s eyebrow twitches, and Jee actually felt sorry for him. Zhao ordering one thing and Prince Zuko the opposite. Talk about being caught between a bushfire and a volcano. 

“Your Highness, I was specifically instructed to escort you to the command tent while…”

Jee could feel Zuko’s fire spike.

“And I specifically instruct you to take me to Captain Zhao _at once!_ ”

The officer didn’t flinch. Anyone who had to work with Zhao on a daily basis got used to shouting pretty quickly. He bowed again, more deeply than before. “As you wish, Your Highness.” 

He turned and began to march the way he’d come, into the camp proper instead of following the dock in the direction of the larger command tent. 

Soon they were weaving through sea of red tents in a complicated pattern, Zuko following their guide at a fast clip while Jee struggled to keep up in the chaos that extended even into here. The corridors between the tents were packed with running soldiers and craftsmen at work, and with things, piles and piles of materials and half-finished tools and objects. There were stacks of strangely thick boots, large tons of oil and water, and even carts piled high with what looked like boar-deer furs. 

Jee had to keep a close eye on the bouncing ponytail in order not to lose track of Zuko. It was hard to do while also paying some attention to where he was putting his feet. The ground was still saturated with ash from the old rebellion, and the rain had turned it into sticky black mud.

Emerging into the wide open training ground was like walking out the gates of a bustling city into wide open fields. 

Zhao was there, running kata side by side with a fairly young woman Jee had never seen before and a man he did recognize - one of the officers of the ship Jee had served on under Zhao’s command. Shu? He’d been rather forgettable. If Zhao had taken the man along when he assumed command of the bigger Taikai, though, he must have some hidden talents. 

The trio was moving in perfect and silent unison, pausing every few breaths with their faces towards the sun above the cloud cover. Zuko stopped walking at the edge of the training ground. Apparently even he could respect the sanctity of what was clearly a ritual training. 

Not enough not to interrupt when it took too long, though.

“Captain Zhao!”

The look of complete surprise that screwed up Zhao’s ugly hogmonkey face as he noticed them was almost comical. The glare he leveled at the poor officer who’d led them here against orders was a lot less amusing. 

He recovered quickly, though; the anger on his face smoothed into blankness, with only his customary mild frown remaining. He waved away his two training companions and strode over to Zuko, ignoring the boy who was trying to hand him a robe and a towel for the soot on his arms and chest.

Jee frowned. Working on a coal steamer with engines that were probably made the year his mother was born pretty much guaranteed that every day, he got twice as sweaty and filthy as Zhao was now. Greeting a prince in this state - and half naked - was an insult, though.

“Good morning, Prince Zuko.” Zhao’s bows were always so perfect it was downright irritating. 

Zuko’s eyes lingered on the black dust on Zhao’s naked shoulders, and Jee stamped down on the urge to tell him not to ogle other people. It was hardly likely that Zuko was actually ogling.

“This is the important meeting I had to wait for? Morning training?”

Zhao tut-tutted and waved a hand in the general direction of his two companions, who were getting dressed a good distance away from each other and not looking at anyone. “Not simple training, Prince Zuko. Captain Shu and deputy lieutenant Wei are due to fight an Agni Kai at noon today. Since they’re under my command, it’s my duty to verify that they’re both fit. They would dishonor Agni if they entered into a duel unprepared.”

A strangely careful, hesitant look crossed Zuko’s face. “An Agni Kai?”

Zhao smiled. There was something unpleasant in it that was far beyond patronizing.

“Yes. The captain ordered the deputy lieutenant to set fire to a civilian Earth Kingdom vessel that had cut across their ship’s course, and she refused and called him a dishonorable brute in front of half of their crew.” Zhao almost looked regretful. “He demands satisfaction, of course. One doesn’t just disrespect a captain. He’s like a father to his crew. ”

Zuko took a deep breath, but didn’t reply. Zhao smiled. 

The woman had noticed them watching; she quickly threw her fists together and bowed. Zhao inclined his head in her direction. He kept his eyes on Zuko’s face, though, as if he thought he might miss something interesting if he blinked.

“Deputy lieutenant Wei is very talented. One of my most promising officers.” Zhao finally seemed to notice the boy with the robe who’d been trying to get his attention. After a quick swipe with the towel across his chest, he took the robe and shrugged it on. “Unfortunately, I don’t think she stands much of a chance against the captain in a fight. He’s a very experienced duelist.”

Zuko stared at the woman in the distance with a strange mixture of determination and worry.

“Don’t count her out like that.”

“I’m not,” Zhao said. “I’m merely stating facts, Prince Zuko. One always hopes that the young and impetuous will surprise us in a good way, but they rarely do.” He didn’t smile now, but he looked like he wanted to. “The situation is regrettable, but at least we can expect that the both of them will behave honorably and do our Navy proud. The deputy lieutenant knows she’s very likely to die in a few hours, but she refuses to back out of the fight. No doubt she will do her best in the arena, so that Captain Shu will be justified in giving her a swift and honorable death instead of having to shame her by letting her live.” The smile returned, but it was about as friendly as a sharktiger’s grin. “Don’t you find such courage inspiring?”

Zuko said nothing. The chi in the air shifted as he took another very deep breath. 

Jee looked away from the Zhao’s ugly face in favor of watching the future opponents stalk off in opposite directions. He vaguely hoped that Zuko would get sick of negotiating with Zhao in time for them to go witness the fight. Jee hadn’t attended a good Agni Kai in years. There had been countless impromptu duels in ports and on the deck of the _Yuan_ , of course, but a full-blown Agni Kai with all the pomp and circumstance was always a spectacle to behold. 

“I don’t care,” Zuko snapped. He didn’t look anywhere near as enthusiastic about seeing an Agni Kai as Jee felt. “I want to negotiate about buying supplies from this port. Now.”

“By all means. My command tent is this way.” Zhao inclined his head and fell into step besides Zuko. Now his expression had turned almost fond, as if all this brusqueness was terribly charming. “It’s always good to see you, Prince Zuko. We haven’t met in over three months, I was beginning to think you were hiding from me.”

“I was busy,” Zuko grumbled.

“No doubt.” Zhao looked him up and down. “You’ve gotten taller again.”

Zuko almost stopped walking. “What?”

Zhao held his hand level with his mouth. “I’m certain you barely came up to my chin last time. I’d forgotten how fast young men grow.” His eyes widened in mock alarm. “But where are my manners? My warmest congratulations on your coming of age, Prince Zuko.” 

“Thank you.” It sounded like Zuko could think of a thousand words he’d rather say. “I want to discuss buying equipment for…”

“Have you had breakfast, Prince Zuko?”

Zuko blinked in confusion. “No,” he said, then immediately seemed to think better of it.

But Zhao was already smiling again. “Tsk. A growing boy… I mean, a growing man should eat properly. I was about to take an early lunch, would you care to join me?”

“No, I’m here on business. I don’t have time for pleasantries,” Zuko snapped. He was clearly losing patience with being ignored. Jee understood the feeling. Zhao hadn’t even glanced in his direction yet.

“Are you sure, Prince Zuko? I only just returned from a visit to Caldera, and I brought amezaiku sugar dragons. Your fondness for them is still legendary in the palace. The head cook mentioned you by name when I asked for some to take with me.”

“Caldera?” For a moment, all the irritation washed from Zuko’s face as if it had never been there at all. He looked so hideously young that Jee wanted to kick him just to make him put the nasty glower back on. “Did you meet my father?”

Zhao smiled wider. “I did have the honor of speaking with Fire Lord Ozai. Join me at my table, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose and shot Zhao a an exasperated glare. “Oh, fine.”

“Excellent. This outpost is very boring, Prince Zuko. I rarely have the chance to entertain.” Zhao inclined his head and quickened his pace. “Follow me.”

The throng of soldiers and craftsmen between the tents made way for Zhao with a lot more alacrity than they’d displayed earlier. Jee glared at them a little as he stomped past. 

They passed the carts full of furs again, and this time Zuko suddenly seemed to take notice. He slowed down and turned to Zhao.

“What are all these for?”

The corners of Zhao’s mouth curled down. “New winter coats for my soldiers, Prince Zuko.”

“That’s a lot of coats,” Zuko said, almost slowly. His eyes wandered to a pile of strange, flat contraptions that Jee had never before seen in his life. “And a lot of snow shoes, Captain.”

There was something new and very unfriendly in the glower that Zhao turned on the prince. Jee felt his hackles rise. “I like to be prepared for all eventualities, Prince Zuko. Winters are harsh down here.”

“How many people are here, anyway?”

“A few thousand,” Zhao said. He sounded close to snarling.

Zuko frowned at him, but remained silent during the rest of the walk to the command tent. He kept looking around, though.

They were already through the tent’s entrance by the time Zhao finally looked at Jee, who was following a few paces behind Zuko.

“What’s this, Prince Zuko?”

“My lieutenant, here to escort me,” Zuko snapped.

Zhao looked at Jee for a long moment. Jee briefly wished he’d taken the time to polish up his uniform like Zuko had been doing, then immediately hated himself for giving a damn. 

“Very well. He can stand with my stewards.” Zhao motioned to the side.

The uniformed men lined up along the tent wall didn’t move to make room when Jee approached, and he cast them a not very surreptitious glare as he squeezed in between the last man in line and a tent pole. Their uniforms were much newer and cleaner than Jee’s, and their beards and mustaches were trimmed far straighter than his own. But he was taller than all of them. 

Jee stood up straight. There was no way he was going to look like an embarrassment among Zhao’s complement of blank-faced and perfectly-groomed _stewards_. He managed to resist the urge to suck in his stomach, though.

“Prince Zuko, don’t stand there,” Zhao said. He motioned to the visitor’s chair at the other end of the table. “Take a seat.”

Zuko was staring hard at the table in the middle of the tent, and no wonder. Nearly the whole wooden surface was covered in plates and bowls, all of them piled high with more different foods than Jee had seen in one place since the great victory banquet after General Iroh broke through the outer wall of Ba Sing Se. At least five kinds of dumplings, small dishes of colorful pickled vegetables, rice cakes dusted with tea powder, spiced rolls, a large, steaming pot of blindingly white rice…

This was a feast, not a lunch. Jee narrowed his eyes. What was the meaning of this?

“As soon as we spotted your ship approaching the harbor, I took the liberty of having some traditional dishes prepared in honor of your coming of age. You must miss the tastes of home.” Zhao sank into his chair without waiting for Zuko to sit first.

Zuko’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t quite manage to look away from the table. Jee could see his nose twitching. 

“We already had a Fire Nation banquet on my ship.” Which he hadn’t actually attended, but it was nice of him to remember it, Jee supposed.

“A real one, with ingredients straight from Caldera itself?” Zhao shook his head and indicated the other chair again. “Take a seat and indulge yourself, Prince Zuko. This is the sort of food that’s your due. It is an injustice, in a sense, that you have to make do with less.”

Zuko sat down, but his glare didn’t ease one bit. “My cook is excellent.”

“I’m glad to hear you got used to Navy fare, Prince Zuko. It’s an acquired taste, and I can’t say I miss it now that I captain a ship that has room for a proper galley and real chef.” He motioned to the nearest steward. “Wine. Do you drink, Highness?”

 _Say no_ , Jee immediately thought. The brat had been getting used to paint stripper, but Jee remembered sweet officers’ wine very well from the few years that he himself had been allowed to sit at the tables of the big helmets. The stuff was so much easier to quaff down than ships’ moonshine. You could pour four glasses down your throat and not realize how far gone you were until it was time to rise from the table.

“Of course I drink,” Zuko said, loud and clear and full of challenge. Jee fought the urge to close his eyes in exasperation.

Zhao only nodded. “Excellent. Wine for Prince Zuko as well.”

One of the stewards moved out of the line, filled the wine cups on the table, and retreated out of the circle of light around the table again.

The tent’s front receiving room was twice as large as Zuko’s cabin on the ship, but the gentle slope of the canvas ceiling and the thick red wall hangings made it look strangely compressed. It probably felt intimate in the right circumstances, but right now, it was just stifling. The lamps cast too little light. And somebody was burning incense somewhere to mask the smells of the surrounding army camp; the air was so thick with the scent of camphor that it was downright cloying. Jee had been inside for only a few minutes, but he was already yearning for the open skies and salt winds of the ship.

Of course Zhao was perfectly at ease here. He raised his cup. “A long life and good health to you, my prince.”

Zuko copied the gesture without a word. He took only a small sip.

“How is my father?”

“Have some of that soup, Prince Zuko. The miso is from Shu Jing.” Zhao put his cup down and took up his own soup bowl. “The Fire Lord is well. He leads our armies with skill and confidence, and enjoys excellent health. His youth and vigor are a sight to behold.” He gave Zuko a slick, lingering look that made Jee want to put two fingers through the bastard’s eyes. “Now that I think about it, you resemble him more every year.” 

A cube of tofu slipped from between Zuko’s chopsticks and landed back in his bowl with a small splash. “I do?”

Zhao nodded. The look on his face was hard to make out in the soft shadows cast by the lamps, even as they illuminated Zuko’s features in all the harsh detail. “Definitely. Have you sent him a portrait, Prince Zuko? I’m sure he’d be amazed to see how you’ve changed in the past two and a half years.”

The wondering look on Zuko’s face soured. “No, I haven’t.”

“You should.” 

Zhao busied himself with his food for a while, almost humming as he let his chopsticks wander over the delicacies. He seemed to be making a game out of reaching for things first whenever Zuko looked at them. 

Jee half closed his eyes and let his attention wander from the table’s occupants to the gentle fires in the lamps next to it. Manipulating flame instead of just sensing it wasn’t easy at such a distance, and focusing this hard would earn him a lovely headache later, but he managed. The light bloomed brighter. Not so much that it would be noticed, but enough so that Zhao wasn’t hiding in shadows anymore.

If the bastard noticed that Jee was messing with his no doubt carefully arranged lighting scheme, he didn’t show it. 

“Now, Prince Zuko. It’s a pleasant surprise to meet you here, but a surprise nonetheless. What brings you to Ishihama?”

Soup finished, Zuko began to fill another bowl from the assortment of fried fish displayed on one of the center plates. “I’m outfitting my ship for an expedition to the South Pole. I want gear and supplies.”

Zhao rotated the fish plate around so that Zuko could reach the selection on the other side. Jee dug his short nails into the palms of his hands. It was never good news when Zhao was being helpful and friendly, but Zuko seemed too absorbed in the food to really notice. He didn’t stop sipping from the wine, either. Jee fleetingly wished he hadn’t tried so hard to teach the brat about the joys of alcohol.

“To search for the Avatar? I seem to remember you already visited the Pole once.”

Twice, but Zuko didn’t correct him. He was wolfing down fish and rice like he hadn’t been fed in three days.

“We didn’t do a thorough search then. This expedition will go inland and do a close sweep of all shores. We’ll also interrogate the natives,” he said around a mouthful of fish that was still crackling from the frying oil.

Zhao smiled. “What dedication.” Without asking, he picked up a plate full of white shapes that Jee didn’t even recognize and transferred them to one of Zuko’s bowls. And he did it with the tips of his own chopsticks, the ones he’d been touching with his filthy mouth, instead of turning the utensils around and using the clean ends. 

Jee glowered, but Zuko seemed too wrapped up in a particularly succulent vegetable roll to notice the disrespect.

“Aren’t Caldera spices exquisite,” Zhao drawled. “It would be my honor to assist you in your venture, Prince Zuko. What is it you need, exactly?”

“Ice-proof plating for the ship, full height at the prow and at least half height for the rest of its length. Food and cooking supplies for five months, for twenty-one men. Wind-proof clothes and other polar gear, also for twenty-one.” Zuko put down his chopsticks for a moment and pulled a few folded papers from his armor. “Here’s a full list for your quartermaster.”

Zhao took the list and skimmed it for a moment. “I’ll tell him to comply with your requests, as much as we’re able. I see some things on here that we don’t have in stock, like the sleds, but I’m sure my artisans could make some for you in short order.”

“All right.” Zuko looked faintly surprised. “Thank you.”

Zhao nodded amiably, leaned back, and picked up his cup. He began to swirl the wine around in it as his eyes wandered up and down the list.

“Plain rabbit-deer fur for all winter coats, Prince Zuko? I recommend mink-deer for you and your officers, it’s the latest fashion.”

“I can’t waste money on frippery.”

The wine cup stopped on its way to Zhao’s mouth, just for a moment. Then his smile widened fractionally. “I see. You prefer the cheaper option, very well. I’ll be happy to help you get your polar gear, on the condition that you do me the honor of visiting at least once a day while you’re in harbor, Prince Zuko. Don’t stay holed up on your ship the whole time. These outposts are boring places for a cultured man, and I’ve been thirsting for civilized company.”

Zuko glared at him over the distinctly uncivilized hold he had on a mostly-chewed picken bone, but he was apparently mollified enough by the food and the wine and Zhao’s easy cooperation. “Whatever. And we want ice-proof plating, too.”

“Yes, yes. Happy to be of assistance, Prince Zuko.” Zhao lifted his cup in the air. “I’ll even arrange for a discount. Consider it a birthday present.”

Zuko perked up. “How much of a discount?”

The smile on Zhao’s face turned into something fit to cut through muscle and bone, and Jee squeezed his eyes shut just so he wouldn’t have to look at it. 

_Oh, you poor stupid child._

Zhao set his cup down on the table and crossed his legs. He began tapping his fingers on the red upholstery of the arm rest, as if he was really in the mood to get up and dance. “How much of a discount do you need, Prince Zuko?”

Doubt began to creep into Zuko’s eyes.

“I don’t _need_ a discount. I just want to sell a few things in this harbor.”

“Sell things? That sounds like a shame. Why would you do that?” Zhao sipped his wine and stared at Zuko over the copper-brown edge of the cup. “Money troubles, Prince Zuko?”

And here came the bit with the explosions. Jee began to draw up a mental list of excuses or manufactured emergencies he could use to get Zuko the hell out of here in a hurry, if it got really bad.

“It’s none of your concern,” Zuko said. Now he was suddenly all tense suspicion and hostility, from the hunch of his shoulders to the white-knuckled grip he kept on his rice bowl. Jee would have given him a congratulatory pat on the head, if this awareness hadn’t come so hopelessly late.

“Of course it is.” Zhao put his cup down and folded his hands on the edge of the table, leaning in. “Tell me what the problem is. I may be able to help. You are, after all, my crown prince.” He paused for a second. “Speaking of which. Does it have something to do with why I’ve heard no mention of you being appointed your honored father’s heir after your sixteenth birthday?”

Zuko’s head was ducking lower and lower, right along with the hiss in his voice. “It’s none of your concern, and I don’t need your help!”

“Of course not, Highness. I didn’t mean to imply anything,” Zhao sussed. “But it would be a great honor for me to be allowed to assist the son of the Fire Lord. Whether he will remain crown prince or not. Do feel free to ask for anything you want, I’ll be happy to tell you if it’s within my power to provide.”

“Really,” Zuko ground out. He sounded normal, but the flames in the lamps were starting to flicker in that nervous whirl that Jee had become so intimately familiar with. 

_Calm down, keep calm and keep thinking…_

Zhao sat up straighter and nodded, as if he was quite serious and this whole show of helpfulness and respect wasn’t a sick piece of theater meant to trick a desperate boy into some kind of evil bargain. 

It took more than a few deep breaths to douse the fire crawling through Jee’s fingers. What could he do? If he spoke up, his bad behavior would shame Zuko, and Zhao hadn’t actually done or said anything incriminating. But…

“Is it a loan you need, Prince Zuko?” Zhao opened his hands. “Tell me how much. My modest wealth is nothing compared to that of our esteemed Fire Lord, but I daresay I may be able to help. A ship that small can’t cost much to operate.”

Zuko didn’t reply. It was impossible to tell if he was also trying to come up with an excuse to get out of the tent, or actually considering the offer. Jee had a horrible suspicion that it was the latter.

Zhao nodded again, as if he’d come to some sort of conclusion. He rose to his feet and gestured towards the back room of the tent, where a low tea table was just visible through the door hangings. “Prince Zuko, let us negotiate in private. I’ll make us some tea. My brewing skills are nothing next to General Iroh’s, of course, but I always do the best I can for an honored guest.”

Zuko rose from his chair, slowly, as Zhao waved at the line of stewards without actually looking at them.

“Leave us, and no interruptions until I call for you.”

The stewards saluted and filed out, but Jee immediately moved to follow Zuko through the door hangings. If Zhao wanted all witnesses out of the tent so he could maul his new victim undisturbed, the bastard was welcome to try and make Jee leave.

These were Zhao’s private quarters, Jee realized as soon as he stepped through the hangings. This space held only the tea corner and a large desk surrounded by cabinets, but there was another doorway at the end that probably led to a bedroom. It all looked very understated and military, but there was no mistaking the quality of the furniture. The woven mat under Jee’s feet was probably worth as much as everything he owned. 

He considered heating up the soles of his boots enough to burn the delicate reeds, just out of spite, but he’d probably end up ruining his own clothes at the same time.

The scent of incense was much thicker here, and it took him only a moment to spot the burner next to the tea table. Who could possibly work and live in a space filled with these heady fumes? It was worse than the engine room on the _Yuan_.

Jee had taken up a position next to the doorway by the time Zhao actually noticed him. The glare he got reminded Jee very much of that time he’d gotten punched in the face and locked in the brig for writing that stupid, wonderful song.

“Lieutenant, are your ears failing you? I said to leave us.”

Jee returned the look. “I’m here on the orders of Prince Zuko. Sir.”

Zhao sighed. “Very well. Prince Zuko, would you be so kind as to order Lieutenant Jee to leave the tent?”

Zuko was standing next to the tea table. He was looking from Zhao to Jee with a look of deep, deep suspicion. 

“No. He stays.”

Zhao knelt on one of the sitting cushions and began to prepare the tea. He was shaking his head, as if he was disappointed that Zuko was being so childish. 

“Lieutenant Jee won’t be any good to you during negotiations, Prince Zuko. His grasp of subtleties isn’t much to write home about.”

 _And fuck you too,_ Jee thought. He was just starting to reconsider the mat-burning when Zuko almost threw himself down onto his own cushion, with enough violence that it looked like he was going into battle instead of sitting down for tea.

“I’ll thank you not to comment on my choice of escort, _Captain_.”

Jee tried not to smile. It didn’t quite work.

“Very well.” Zhao turned back to Zuko, as if he’d already forgotten that Jee existed. That almost-friendly smile reappeared. “Why is General Iroh not with you, Prince Zuko? Is he unable to help you with these financial troubles?”

Zuko looked calmer than before, but at the same time, a lot angrier than he had before Zhao had tried to throw Jee out.

“I don’t want charity, yours or my uncle’s. I want permission to sell some objects in this harbor so I can pay for my gear and my plating. Do I have permission?”

Zhao poured from an idiotically fancy teapot with a spout in the shape of a dragon’s head. “I’d be happy to grant you permission under normal circumstances, Prince Zuko, but it’s my duty to ensure that the traders in my employ don’t give away too much of their gold. I have my own mission to consider.” A delicate red cup with a golden rim landed in front of Zuko. “What are you planning to sell, anyway?”

“That’s my business.” Now Zuko was almost snarling. The lamps were starting to flicker again. “I saw those piles of snow shoes. And I saw people stacking ice pikes. What is this mission you’re preparing for?”

Something twitched on Zhao’s face, hard and angry, as if this turn in the conversation had surprised him in a very unpleasant way.

The cup in Zuko’s hand froze halfway on the way to his mouth. He’d noticed.

“Your men were making snow shoes. And ice pikes. You’re gathering forces and you’re building war docks…” 

Zuko’s good eye opened wide a heartbeat before Jee made the connection for himself. The cup hit the table, sloshing tea everywhere, and Zuko rose up on his knees and slammed his hands on the wood.

“You’re going to the South Pole yourself!”

The fire in the lamps leapt up. It wasn’t Zuko’s doing.

Jee’s heart suddenly felt too big for his chest; he could practically hear it hammering at the mere idea… the possibility that they’d _caught_ Zhao at something. No. That would be too good. That never happened.

But he’d been so clearly displeased when Zuko commented on the preparations in the camp earlier. He’d even tried to have him and Jee diverted to the command tent right away - so they wouldn’t see what was being done among the tents?

“Of course I’m not going to the South Pole, Prince Zuko. What would I want with a block of ice that supports nothing more valuable than five huts with three so-called maidens in them?” Zhao was trying to smirk, but now it was very obviously fake.

Jee held his breath. They’d actually made the bastard mad. And as frightening as a furious Captain Zhao could be, the man was very prone to making mistakes once he’d lost his cool.

Even Zuko seemed to be smelling blood in the air. He leaned across the tea table, good eye still wide and shining. 

“What else are you going to need snow shoes and ice pikes for? Do you know anything about the Avatar? Is he there?”

Zhao balled his fist on the table. He was struggling not to bare his teeth, Jee could tell. “No, I don’t know anything about the _Avatar_. Prince Zuko, some of my orders are secret! Too secret to entrust to a mere boy!”

Miraculously, Zuko let the insult pass over his head. He was frowning in furious concentration.

“You’re preparing an invasion force. For a pole, with thousands of people…” Zuko’s eyes shot to the massive world map that hung on the tent wall behind Zhao’s back. “Are you going to the _north_?”

_Wait, what?_

Zhao snarled outright. 

“This is _not_ an invasion force! If you’ve taken such a good look at my camp, you know that the new docks are a fishing port that will make this blasted town livable for colonists! I need thousands of people because half of them are leaving for blockade duty in two weeks! And that gear you’re going on about is necessary for my soldiers to survive winters on this southern coast, Prince Zuko!”

Rhino dung. Winters could be incredibly nasty down here, but Jee would swim to the South Pole with Zuko on his back if this coast had ever seen the sort of blizzard that would call for a single snow shoe. And if the works they’d seen in the harbor were really fishing docks, they were for fishing boats the size of battleships.

Zuko wasn’t saying that, though; he seemed to be hesitating, mouth a little open, as if he wanted to speak but wasn’t sure he was right. He must have missed the sheer size of the cranes on the docks, and the colossal bollards that were unmistakable staples of Fire Navy warship moorings. It was easy to overlook that sort of thing without many years of experience in war ports.

To Koh with remembering his station. Jee had already ticked Zhao off by hanging around - why stop at that?

"That is a lie,” he said from his spot in the corner of the tent. 

Zuko almost knocked his half-full cup off the table in surprise, and Zhao’s head whipped in Jee’s direction like a bat-dog smelling prey.

Jee ignored him and kept his eyes on Zuko, silently begging him to understand. “The docks in this harbor aren’t for fishing boats, sir. They’re designed for…"

The crack of Zhao’s fist hitting wood didn’t bode well for the table’s health. The ridiculous teapot jumped into the air. 

"Be quiet while your betters are speaking!"

Zuko’s fist didn’t make quite that much noise landing, but he moved so fast that Zhao actually reeled back.

"Don't give orders to my men!"

Zhao growled and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Prince Zuko, I outrank Lieutenant Jee. By a very considerable margin, by now. According to the Naval code we all subscribe to, I am well within my rights to chastise him when he...”

This time the thumping fist was on fire.

"I outrank the Naval Code!" Zuko yelled. He looked downright murderous. "And I outrank you! By a margin that you couldn't even _dream_ of closing!"

Zhao looked like he’d just swallowed a rotten lemon. “Nevertheless, _Prince Zuko_ …”

Yet another thump, and now the fire was forceful enough that it rebounded from the abused table and missed Zhao’s sideburns by inches. 

"SILENCE! If your crown prince wishes your _lessers_ to speak in your presence, they will speak in your presence, Zhao!” 

Zuko whirled towards Jee. He looked about to blow up his own head from sheer fury, but Jee could have grabbed his face and kissed him silly right there and then. He wouldn’t even care if it got him horribly murdered on the spot.

“Lieutenant, explain your interruption!"

It was so hard not to grin like a loon. "Yes, sir. As I was saying, this port isn’t for fishing boats. The bollards are far too large, they’re made for holding the mooring lines of warships of Sharktiger class or above. And the cranes on the docks are high enough to reach the decks of an Empire-class battleship. Those giant machines can’t even be used for fishing boats at all.” He paused to lick his lips. He had to get this right. “Also, sir, the amounts of gear we saw being prepared in the camp are far in excess of what any regular-scale occupation or blockade force would need. The men in this camp are gearing up for a major battle, sir, and they’re expecting to conduct it somewhere with a lot of ice.”

Now Zhao actually growled. "Lieutenant, your eyes are failing you. This is ridiculous.”

Jee kept his eyes on Zuko’s. _Please believe me. Please._

"Sir, I would stake my life on this.”

An explosive snort sounded from Zhao’s side of the table. “Lieutenant, once again you prove why General Iroh felt it necessary to remove your honors. Your strategical insight is a joke, and your attitude is…”

“Shut the fuck up!” Zuko barked. 

The look on Zhao’s face was so perfect it was almost heartbreaking. Jee wanted to rip it off so he could keep it in his trunk forever. He’d take it out at least once a day to admire it and remind himself that there was indeed beauty and goodness in the world.

Zuko looked at least as confused as angry, and Jee half expected him to derail everything and ask what that thing about the General had been about.

But Zuko straightened up and narrowed his eyes.

“Captain Zhao, you’re preparing for an invasion in a polar region! And as you just said yourself, there’s nothing in the south.” He leaned forward. “My father’s war council forbids any attempt to attack the Northern Water Tribe. It’s been forbidden ever since we lost forty ships in the Northern Lights Siege eighty-five years ago! It’s a massive waste of manpower and equipment!”

“Prince Zuko, has it occurred to you that your father may have given me orders that you weren’t informed of?” Zhao was almost growling. His balled fists were both on the table now, and he wasn’t even bothering to conceal the glow under his skin.

Zuko ignored the threat and leaned in closer.

“Are you implying that your Fire Lord is so stupid that he’d repeat a tactical error that every child in the nation knows about, Captain Zhao? For no reason?”

“ _I_ have a reason!”

“Wait. Wait.” Zuko’s eyes went wide. “Your fish! You’ve found your fish!”

Zhao’s eyes flew to Jee. “Prince Zuko, that is classified infor…”

“It’s not _classified_ , it’s just one of your stupid secrets,” Zuko interrupted. “I’m right! You’re going after your fish! You can’t use Navy resources for that, it’s a private enterprise!”

“Perhaps I _have_ permission from the Fire Lord to use Navy resources, you little…” A beat of silence. “…Highness.”

Jee couldn’t resist.

“Sir, if he was making these preparations on royal orders, he wouldn’t have to worry about his traders spending their gold. He’d have all the resources he needs coming in from Caldera.”

Zhao opened his mouth, but Zuko bared all his teeth and hissed fire.

“You’re financing this with private money,” he snarled. “And you’re _lying_ to me.”

Zhao stared at Zuko as if he could kill him with a look alone. Zuko leaned in closer.

“Captain Zhao, you’re using the Fire Lord’s soldiers and the Fire Lord’s ships and the Fire Lord’s harbor to prepare an unauthorized attack on a target that the Fire Lord declared off-limits.” There was still fire glowing in the back of his throat. “Explain yourself!”

Zhao almost - almost - growled back. 

“Prince Zuko, do not fancy yourself a military tribunal.”

“I’m _fancying_ myself a prince of the Fire Nation,” Zuko snarled. “Those soldiers and ships you’re appropriating for yourself are soldiers and ships that _I_ will inherit! I’m tired of your insolence and your stalling. Answer me at once. Are you doing this without my father’s permission?”

Jee twisted his itching fingers together behind his back. If he applauded, Zhao would probably just blow up his head immediately, whether there was a royal witness in the room or not.

Zhao stared at Zuko in silence for a few more moments. Then he spoke as if every word was being dragged from his mouth.

“I knew I wouldn’t be able to convince Fire Lord Ozai with my word alone. I plan to inform him as soon as my plan of attack is complete.”

“Hah!” Zuko scoffed. “As soon as you’re so far into your attack that any orders to desist would arrive too late, you mean.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Prince Zuko. You are no strategi…”

“Don’t patronize me. My father made sure I memorized every single military history in the royal library.” Zuko’s eyes shone with fervor and impatience. “It doesn’t matter what you’re planning. You’re siphoning away men and ships from my father’s war effort, for your private gain.” 

He was no longer making attempts at looming over the table or looking intimidating. He sat up perfectly straight, chin high, and he’d never looked more like someone who might actually appear on an official royal portrait one day. 

Except for the blush of excitement coloring his good cheek. Jee didn’t blame him. He could barely keep himself from giggling. Zhao had actually been caught doing something bad for once, and he wasn’t managing to wiggle out of it.

“This is treason, Captain Zhao.”

Zhao didn’t reply.

The fingers of Zuko’s right hand rose from the table, then came down again one by one. “I should report you to my father at once.”

Zhao steepled his fingers. “Careful what you say, Prince Zuko. Your judgment of the Fire Lord’s priorities was never all that spectacular.”

The slight uplift of the corners of Zuko’s mouth turned into an ugly snarl.

“Don’t threaten me. I have nothing to fear from you.”

“Then what are you waiting for, Prince Zuko? Run to your father and tattle.” Zhao smirked. “Oh, wait. You can’t run to him. Better write, then.” 

Judging by the look of vague alarm on Zhao’s face, that one had slipped out before he’d really thought about it. There was an audible crackle of fire coming from Zuko’s throat.

“Don’t think you can get away with this just because I’m out of favor. I’m still a prince.” Zuko’s eyes widened. “ _Oh, wait._ I’m a prince who’s of age. That means I have the right to pass judgment on you all by myself.”

Zhao tilted his head back, looking at Zuko through half-lidded eyes. “But who will you bring to execute your judgment, Highness?”

Zuko inhaled. As one, the fires in the lamps exploded into white light.

“My bare hands, as my father would. Mind your tongue.”

Zhao’s eyes narrowed even further. Jee concentrated, hard, trying to watch both Zhao’s face and his hands at the same time. Something told him that if Zuko got up and turned his back to Zhao for even an instant, the bastard would fire, witness or no witness.

The silence stretched out into what felt like an eternity, until something was throbbing hot behind Jee’s eyes.

Finally, Zuko lowered both hands onto the table in a gesture that was almost non-threatening. He didn’t take his eyes off Zhao.

“I remember my father saying that you’ve always served the royal family well. Perhaps you can be given you a second chance.”

Zhao’s eyebrows climbed up.

“A deal. Take it or leave it,” Zuko said. He leaned forward. “You will outfit my ship, and you’ll give us all the gear and provisions we want. For free. You’ll give me as much gold as my first mate says we need to keep our ship running for two years. And in return, I’ll give you a chance to dismantle this treasonous operation instead of reporting you to my father. Make sure this warship harbor is gone by the time I return from the South Pole.”

Zhao breathed in through his nose, as if he would be able to smell it if Zuko was somehow speaking an untruth.

“You’d neglect to report some imagined treason in return for a few trinkets, Prince Zuko?” The bastard was trying hard to look appropriately shocked, but there was something surprised, almost admiring, in his face. “How very mercantile of you. I confess, based on your track record, I would have expected less pragmatism.”

“Shut your mouth. I don’t give a fuck about what you think of me, and I _will_ finish my mission,” Zuko hissed. He pointed to the desk. “You will write me a full confession of what you’re doing here, so I can be sure you’ll keep your word.”

“Prince Zuko, I will consider it a grave insult if you claim not to be satisfied with my word of honor.”

“How stupid do you think I am? Write a confession. Now.”

Zhao’s expression curdled. 

“As you command. Highness.”

Judging by the look of pure murder on his face as he rose to his feet and walked over to the desk, he was thinking of how to get rid of Zuko in extremely short order. They’d have to be very careful while on these docks. Zuko would need an actual guard detail for as long as they were here. Or maybe they should just keep him on the ship entirely. 

The mere thought of trying to keep Zuko confined for any length of time made Jee’s head hurt. He was going to be a nightmare about it, but…

Just before he set brush to paper, Zhao looked over his shoulder and shot Zuko a look of intense hatred.

Zuko made a hard, angry noise. Zhao went back to writing immediately.

Jee remained as motionless as he could. He hardly dared to breathe for fear that he’d disrupt this scene. He’d seen more memorable things than Zhao being hissed into submission by someone who was a head shorter than him and only half as broad, but not very many.

As if felt he was being observed, Zuko removed his piercing stare from between Zhao’s shoulder blades for a moment and aimed it at Jee. 

The furious glower held for another second or two. Then one corner of the brat’s mouth began to curl up, and Jee tightened his grip on his own fingers so much that it hurt. He had to, because he wanted to reach out and touch and kiss so badly that he didn’t quite trust himself.

He couldn’t say anything like _That was amazing, and tonight I will undress you and worship you until you don’t remember your own name_. So he did the next best thing and pushed an invisible curl of chi at Zuko’s thigh. It couldn’t be more than a gentle nudge, because Zhao wasn’t too far away or too preoccupied with whatever he was doing to that poor paper to notice a flash of strange bending behind his back. But a little bit would do no harm.

As light as the touch was, Zuko’s chi opened for Jee as easily as it had that morning. Jee sighed in pleasure, very quietly, as he combed through the rushing fire under the prince’s skin. Zuko’s chi wasn’t doing its usual restless swirling now. It was _dancing_ , giddy and sparkling with all the elation that was nowhere to be seen on his face. 

Some of it finally reached Zuko’s eyes as Jee took a firmer hold on the fire. He ran an invisible hand up the inside of Zuko’s thigh, pulling chi along from his knee to his groin. 

The fire followed his fingers’ every move as smoothly as if it wanted to be led, making Jee’s muscles shiver in response. Zuko’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment. Then he made a fist and pushed back a swirl of chi that curled over Jee’s reaching hand and into his skin, like the lick of a tongue. Firm and soft with just a hint of roughness, and warm, very warm. So good. Although a bit uncoordinated and a tad too strong…

_That was too strong._

The thought hadn’t even really crystallized in Jee’s mind when Zhao’s head whipped around, eyes sweeping over Jee’s raised hand only to lock firmly on Zuko.

The prince didn’t notice it, or the sudden tightness of Jee’s face. He smiled. It was the proudest and the happiest Jee had ever seen him look. He was beautiful.

The _click_ of a brush hitting wood was as loud as a shot in the sudden silence. 

Zuko frowned and turned back to Zhao. “What are you doing? Write!”

Zhao’s smile was hideously kind. “Congratulations, Lieutenant,” he drawled, not taking his eyes off Zuko. “I’m pleased to see you took my advice for once.”

Incomprehension made Zuko’s stern expression wobble a little. “What are you talking about?”

The chair creaked as Zhao rose to his feet. He was still smiling, wide and immensely pleased. Jee knew that look. If it had been aimed at him, he’d be running. 

He kept still, as still as he could, not even daring to ease his grip on Zuko’s fire in case Zhao sensed the shift. Maybe the bastard hadn’t actually noticed. Maybe he’d just felt _something_ and was guessing. He had no proof.

Not unless anyone gave him any.

“Prince Zuko, I owe you an apology. You really are much, much more pragmatic and resourceful than I gave you credit for.”

Zuko stayed on his cushion, legs folded under him and fists relaxed on his knees, as still as a sitting turtleduck. He gave Zhao a quizzical look. 

“What?”

The instant Jee decided that all decorum and restraint could go to Koh and he was just going to grab Zuko by the back of his tunic and haul him away, Zhao cut between him and the tea table. 

For a moment, it looked like he was going to start circling around like a lion-vulture. Then he suddenly stopped and shoved his smirking face right at Zuko.

“How _creative_ you are, Prince Zuko. If I were stuck on a ship full of miscreants with no honor and no reason not to throw me overboard, I’d never have thought of whoring myself out to keep their loyalty. Is it only the good Lieutenant, or are you servicing all of them?”

Zuko didn’t blink, or move, or say anything. His fire stilled around Jee’s fingers like a dead thing.


	11. In which best efforts are made, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Cough. Apologies for the two-year wait between the previous chapter and this one, it’s a long story of RL and tiredness.
> 
> This one is dedicated to all the lovely people who commented on this fic even through the giant unplanned hiatus. I was on the verge of declaring it abandoned a couple of times, but then there were comments-out-of-nowhere and I reconsidered. Thank you :) Many thanks also to my very patient and encouraging Princebender friends, especially Samalane and her beta skills.
> 
> Extra warning just in case: this chapter contains some nasty emotional manipulation, though it’s mostly not between the main pairing. The story picks up immediately where the last scene left off.

The horrible grin on Zhao’s face turned feral, and if it wouldn’t have been a dead giveaway, Jee would have used his fire to shove Zuko off the stupid cushion so he’d fall on his ass and wake the fuck _up_. 

_Deny it! He’s got no proof, he’s got nothing, deny it NOW…_

Zuko just sat there, mouth open, as dumbstruck as a creaky old rhino who’d just realized he’d been led into a slaughterhouse instead of his familiar cozy stable.

Zhao’s ugly face warped into a mockery of sad disappointment. 

“Prince Zuko, you shock me. A prince by blood…”

Something seemed to snap in Zuko. His eyes flashed, and then he was on his feet and slashing a whip of fire through the air so fast that Zhao only barely managed to pull his monkey face out of the way in time.

"Silence! This is about you betraying our country, Zhao. Not about me!"

Zhao drowned the trail of fire between them with a fierce flame of his own.

"That’s right, you stupid little pup, it’s not about you!" he snarled. “I couldn’t care less whose balls you spend your nights licking. By all means, have your filthy crew fuck you until you’ve caught every disease known to man, so long as you _stay out of my way!_ The North Pole mission _I_ am preparing for has the potential to bring our nation the greatest victory since your uncle broke through the outer wall of Ba Sing Se, and then _failed_."

For one instant, Zuko just stood there, healthy cheek darkening until it was almost the exact same color as the scar. Then he balled his fists.

"You’ll be sorry for every word you just said until the end of your next eight lives," Zuko hissed. The low tea table was between him and the door hangings, but he just kicked it out of the way and stalked past Zhao. "I've wasted enough time here. Lieutenant, get a messenger hawk that can fly to Caldera and bring it to my cabin. I have treason to report to my father.”

Quick as lightning, Zhao’s hand shot out. Before Jee had quite processed what he was seeing, the hand closed around Zuko’s ponytail and jerked him backwards.

"ENOUGH!" Zhao roared.

He let go the moment Zuko stumbled backwards. Zuko hadn’t even cried out; he just scrambled to keep his footing, eyes wide, as if the sudden violence had stunned him as thoroughly as a rock to the side of the head.

Jee felt himself step forward, fire rushing down to his fingertips, singing _Kill him_ …

Zhao pointed a finger straight at his face without even looking.

“ _Do not move, Lieutenant,_ ” he snarled.

However, it seemed that the brief distraction had been enough for Zuko to rally. He fell into a combat pose and hissed again; the sound was low and fierce with challenge. Jee was put in mind of a very small and bald dragon.

“How _dare_ you touch your prince!”

“Be quiet and listen to me, _Highness_ ,” Zhao snarled. He wasn’t mirroring the aggressive bending stance, as if it didn’t even occur to him that Zuko might be a serious threat. "It seems you're still too young for reason after all, so I'll make this simple for you. You will not inform your father about any of the preparations that I’m making in this port. You will leave immediately and not come back for at least five months. Go search for the Avatar in Koh’s lair, I don’t give a damn, as long as you’re _gone_ from here.”

Zuko’s lips curled back from his teeth. “I will _not_ be ordered about like…”

“Be quiet, I wasn’t finished! If you do contact your father or return here too early, I will post notices in every port from here to the Northern Air Temple about _exactly_ what you did to earn that disgusting thing on your face. With a postscript about who you’re bending over for these days,” Zhao added with a heavy glance at Jee. “That should be news.” 

Zuko had opened his mouth almost at the same time as Zhao, but no sound came out. His face had gone entirely blank, as grey and stiff as a mask, as if he was trying to keep something horrible inside.

Whatever it was, it looked like Zhao could guess. His leer had become downright greasy.

“Your pitiful excuse for a crew will be so very disappointed in their commander when they find out what you’ve been hiding." Zhao’s grin showed far more teeth than anyone should be allowed to have. "Disappointed, I say? They'll be _enraged_ to find out they've been tarnishing the last shreds of their honor by following the most disloyal, lying, shiftless _coward_ who was ever put in charge of a Fire Navy ship."

Zuko glanced at Jee out of the corner of his eye. Very briefly, and without turning his head, as if he was petrified of taking his eyes off Zhao for even a heartbeat.

“You wouldn’t tell anyone.” The fear in his hoarse voice was thick as syrup, almost tangible.

Zhao licked his lips like he could taste it.

"I understand your position, my prince." He dropped his voice, as if he was making a horribly fake attempt to keep Jee from overhearing. "You must be eager to keep a lid on the cause of your disgrace. Your father did you _such_ a great kindness by not informing the world of exactly what a dishonorable craven you are."

Zuko stared at him. His face looked carved from ice.

It was Zhao who finally broke the deadlock. He leaned down, righted the tea table Zuko had kicked over, and pushed the overturned cups and tea pot to the side with his foot. Then he opened a small chest next to the tent wall and took out a new tea service.

He didn’t look at Zuko again until he’d arranged the clean cups on the table.

“Now… That was quite enough unpleasantness, don’t you agree, Highness? Let us continue our tea and see how we can resolve our differences in a more civilized fashion.”

“Lieutenant,” Zuko said. He sounded a little faint, as if the incense fumes were finally getting to him. “Leave. Wait for me outside.”

What? No. No way in hell. Jee turned on Zuko, trying not to look as confused as he felt. Why did he have to go? He’d been useful up to now. He’d helped Zuko catch Zhao in his deceit with his invasion preparations, hadn’t he? And…

Perhaps if Jee hadn’t been there to draw Zhao’s attention to this… thing between them, Zuko would have won his battle of wits.

“Sir, I…”

“Wait for me outside!”

The sharpness in Zuko’s voice made Jee stop short. That wasn’t an order. It was a plea.

Zhao had heard it too. His smile widened fractionally.

“Actually, Prince Zuko, I’m glad the good Lieutenant decided to hang around. I just thought of a way for him to finally make himself useful.” 

His piercing stare swiveled towards Jee. 

“Lieutenant, I’m not certain Prince Zuko understands the precariousness of his position on board his own ship. Refresh your commander’s memory. When is mutiny justified?"

It was such an odd thing to ask that Jee momentarily forgot that he wasn’t going to do anything Zhao said.

“What?”

“What, _sir_ ,” Zhao said. He sounded exasperated rather than mad.

Jee thought of how Zuko had whispered those words into his ear, back down in the rhino hold, challenge and promise in one. He tightened his fingers hard enough that his short nails bit into his palms.

"The Naval Code, Lieutenant,” Zhao went on. He made a little encouraging motion with his hand, as if he was trying to lure a shy mouse-rabbit. “Even you must have managed to memorize it at some point. When, according to our Naval Code, is mutiny justified? Required, even?"

Section two, line five. The words leapt onto Jee’s tongue as easily as his own name. He’d studied harder than anyone during officer training, not that it did him much good in the end.

"A crew must mutiny when a captain or commander is found to be disloyal to the Fire Lord and grossly dishonorable of spirit. Sir." He wanted to spit.

“Well,” Zhao said. He raised one eyebrow at Zuko. “ _Well._ Disloyal to the Fire Lord, or dishonorable of spirit… Tell me. Does your crew like you at all?" A brief pause. "Suppose they knew the truth. I wonder if they'd kill you outright, or pity you enough to put you overboard and let you try your luck with the shark-tigers."

Wait, what?

Zuko seemed to recover a bit of his fire. His snarl was downright impressive.

"I'm not disloyal. _Never_."

Zhao sighed.

"That is debatable at the very least. And your weakness most certainly makes you dishonorable of spirit. Maybe even grossly so.” The look he cast at Zuko was almost pitying, as if he was seeing a man wasting away from some incurable and unsightly disease. “Hopelessly so.”

“It’s _not_ hopeless! I made a mistake, I lost my courage for only a _moment_ …” Zuko’s face twisted. “I can regain my honor!”

Steam began to rise from the tea pot’s spout as Zhao held his hands on its sides.

“If you really believed you just made a _mistake_ , you'd have told your lieutenant the truth and let him make up his own mind about you. You don’t have the courage to speak because you know you have something to fear.” 

Zuko didn’t reply. The sound of liquid being poured into cups filled the brief silence. 

"Tell me, have you really tried hard to find the Avatar? Or are you just pretending to look because you're afraid to face him?" 

"I am _not_ a coward," Zuko snapped.

"Oh, Prince Zuko,” The disappointment sounded mild and fake, as if Zhao had simply caught a child in a lie. “You can't have changed that much in only a few years."

Zuko took a breath so shaky that it made the lamps flicker.

“You have no right to speak to me that way. I’m your crown prince.”

He’d given up. Jee could tell by the utter lack of fire in his voice. But that was impossible - the brat never gave up. He didn’t know how.

Zhao’s expression had turned serious, almost severe. “But I _am_ speaking about you that way, and no one’s stopping me. You forfeited the respect and deference that a royal prince is due.”

Zuko had drawn himself up as tall as he could, but he’d never looked smaller to Jee’s eyes. 

He said nothing.

After a few more moments of horrible, thick silence, Zhao gestured once more to the cushions on the floor. “Sit, Prince Zuko. Now. I’m offering you the chance to resume negotiations. Trust me, you want to take it.” 

Zuko shook his head. “I’m not negotiating with a traitor.” He sounded faint.

The shake of Zhao’s head was almost sad.

“A traitor? _Me_ , Prince Zuko?” He rose up on his knees to place a second tea cup in front of Zuko’s empty cushion, then crossed his legs and made himself comfortable. “You were happy to deal with me only minutes ago, when the cards lay in your favor.”

“We have nothing to discuss.”

Zhao placed both hands on his knees. He stared at Zuko, hard, and his face was suddenly empty of all mockery and amusement.

“Maybe I’m prepared to forget about the disgraceful way you tried to threaten me, Prince Zuko. Me, a true and honorable patriot. Maybe I’m willing to sit down with you and work out a mutually beneficial solution to our problems.” He held Zuko’s gaze. “Let us talk. Sit _down_.”

Zuko stared at the red fabric of the cushion as if he was sure it was stuffed with rat-scorpions. 

“No,” he said simply. 

He looked _terrified_ , Jee realized.

Was there a way to get him out? Set something on fire? Interrupt with some emergency, some plausible lie…

Zhao sighed.

“Prince Zuko, we find ourselves at something of an impasse here. I realize that if I send a hawk to Caldera about your new habit of bending over for unwashed sailors, or spread some _accurate_ information about the reasons for your banishment, you’ll retaliate by informing the Fire Lord about my invasion preparations. Nevertheless, you must recognize that your position is a great deal more precarious than mine. Think about it. You would do so much better to negotiate.” 

He stared at Zuko until Jee wondered why the bastard’s eyes weren’t falling out of his skull just from the lack of blinking. 

“I have a great deal to lose, Highness. But you have _everything_ to lose, and you know it.” 

His tone was matter-of-fact, dry, as if he was actively trying not to sound in any way condescending at all. 

Zuko blinked slowly.

“I will kill you,” he said. The tone was so much softer than his usual snarl, so normal, that it made a shiver run down Jee’s spine.

It also sounded like Zuko knew exactly how little the words mattered.

“Do give it a rest with the threats, before I decide to write your secrets down just in case,” Zhao drawled. He glanced at Jee, and his smile turned greasy. “Although perhaps you shouldn’t worry too much about what might happen when the Fire Lord hears about your newest indiscretion. I’m sure he’ll find it only the least of your failures.”

Zuko looked like he’d been slapped in the face.

“ _No_ ,” he said. It sounded alarmingly close to a whimper.

“I apologize, Prince Zuko. That was uncalled for. I get carried away sometimes.” Zhao nodded at the other cushion without looking at it. “Please, sit and drink your tea. This day doesn’t have to be yet another shameful defeat for you. You are far too young to let yourself lose everything over a point of pride. It would be a great waste.” 

He sounded like he meant it.

Then a new sound cut through the silence, of someone rapping on a tent pole just outside.

“Sir, it’s time for the Agni Kai. Captain Shu and Deputy Lieutenant Wei just arrived at the parade ground.” It was the voice of the officer who had come to meet them at the docks that morning. Or rather, a few hours ago. It felt to Jee like they’d been in this horrible stuffy tent for a full day.

Zhao sighed explosively.

“I’ll be there in a moment,” he said as he rose to his feet again. “Prince Zuko, please accompany me. I can’t absent myself from an Agni Kai. Our negotiations can continue during the fight, we can speak in privacy in the seats of honor.”

Oh, no. Jee couldn’t let Zhao whisk the brat away and start pressuring him right now, while Zuko was still reeling from… whatever had just happened. They needed a moment to strategize, to regroup…

Fortunately, Zuko seemed to realize as much. Or maybe he just wanted _out_ , because he didn’t even glance at Jee before giving Zhao a flat stare. 

“I’m not interested in the squabbles of your soldiers. Go by yourself.”

Zhao shook his head.

“But you’ll have to fight Agni Kai of your own one day, my prince. You should see how it’s _really_ done.” He smiled. “You may learn how to save yourself some humiliation in the future.”

There was no answer, but the frightened, brittle quality to Zuko’s blank stare made Jee stop and frown.

Zhao smiled at Jee’s puzzled expression before turning back to Zuko. “The Lieutenant seems confused. Should I enlighten him, Highness? Or would you rather we head for the parade ground now?”

“We’ll go,” Zuko said after a moment. He sounded more resigned than Jee had ever heard him. Almost… beaten.

“Excellent. Follow me.” Zhao took one step, then waited until Zuko had drawn up next to him before striding out into the grayish light outside.

Jee followed because no one told him not to.

They walked in silence along the docks. The high wooden walls of the parade ground weren’t far, but their progress was hampered by a thick throng of people streaming in the same direction. It looked like all work in the camp and along the docks had stopped; carts and tools lay abandoned, and the only people who didn’t seem to be moving were some food sellers behind stalls that smelled of fried things and spices. Captain Shu and Deputy Lieutenant Wei were clearly popular, or maybe there just weren’t many opportunities for diversions in this camp. 

When they finally made it to the parade ground, it took Zhao’s guards some shouting and shoving to get their commander and his guest through the crowd clogging the entrance. The makeshift arena was buzzing with excited voices and shouts, and the opponents were already on opposite sides of the field, each surrounded by clusters of friends. 

Deputy Lieutenant Wei was standing closest to the entrance, looking a tad pale while a Fire Sage did some fiddly precision bending on the golden band that encircled her upper arm. She'd probably borrowed a pair of Agni Kai bands from someone bigger than her. Few soldiers could afford them, or were friendly enough with a richer bender to get a pair when they needed them.

She hissed as the metal tightened around her biceps. Zuko had been looking at her too, and he twitched at her sound of pain.

“Don’t worry, Highness. She’s fine,” Zhao said kindly. He was smiling down on Zuko with an expression that looked disturbingly close to fondness.

“I know that,” Zuko snapped.

Zhao hummed, then stopped walking for a moment to survey the parade ground and the stands. He threw an annoyed frown at the clouds that blocked the sun, but nodded in satisfaction anyway.

“The stands are new, Highness,” he said to Zuko. “See how the levels appear to interlock? My engineers developed a new crossbeam design that increases stability in wooden stands and allows for many more levels than usual. Now we can build proper Fire Nation parade grounds all over the world in wood, instead of relying on slow stone construction. We can also take them down and rebuild them elsewhere.”

“Fascinating.” Zuko sounded like he thought every word out of Zhao was a waste of breath.

“You can send away your lieutenant now, Highness. He’s not allowed in the seats of honor. And I presume that you don’t want an audience for the rest of our discussion.”

“Wait for me here, Lieutenant,” Zuko said as soon as Zhao began to walk away. 

He kept his eyes on Zhao while he said it, as if he still didn’t want to risk looking away from the man. Or as if he didn’t want to look at Jee.

Jee took in a deep breath and tried to sound as sensible as he could manage. 

“Sir, please let me come with you.”

Zuko shook his head. He still wasn’t looking Jee in the eyes.

“No. I’ll be done soon. Go sit somewhere close to the entrance so I’ll find you.”

One last try. “Sir, I told you, I don’t care what secrets you think Zhao might spill about you. I know he lies and I know you were only a child when… whatever. It doesn’t matter what you think I’ll overhear, I swear that…”

Now Zuko did look at him. His face was lined with weariness and tension.

“I don’t want you there.”

That stung. It was a struggle not to let his face show just how much. 

“Sir, please, I…”

“No,” Zuko said with quiet finality.

Oh.

“Sir,” Jee answered, just as softly. He bowed. When he lifted his head again, Zuko was already halfway to the seats of honor in the front and middle of the stands.

The worst part of it was that he understood. The brat had been doing fine against Zhao until Jee decided to meddle, until Jee decided he just had to give Zuko’s fire a quick nudge. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened at all if he hadn’t been there. The General would have done a much better job - and Jee should have pushed Zuko harder to make him take his uncle along, he knew that. He’d known that before they even left the ship this morning. But he’d been so stupidly proud that Zuko had chosen to rely on him. 

And now Zuko was starting to find out exactly what happened when you tried to rely on Jee to not fuck important things up.

Jee didn’t particularly feel like seeing the Agni Kai anymore. 

He turned his back to the parade ground and began to follow the smells of food on the wind. There was no need for him to hang around here. He’d know by the noise of the crowd when the fight was over, and then he could return to wait for Zuko. If the brat didn’t strike some kind of deal with Zhao that would make it completely unnecessary for him to come back to the _Yuan_.

Jee shivered. The breeze was cold out here in the open.

The camp’s food stalls were paltry - there wasn’t much to be had besides good old fire flakes and some seafood. There was no alcohol on sale at all. He should have figured that, they wouldn’t openly distribute paint stripper in the middle of a military camp at noon. If there had been more people about, he might have been able to find out where the paint stripper was being covertly distributed, but everyone was at the Agni Kai. Perhaps he should take a leaf out of Lei’s book and start carrying around a little flask in his sleeve. 

There was one old woman selling hot spiced milk from a large pan, but she wanted eight coppers for a cup. With their newly discovered money troubles weighing on his mind, Jee couldn’t bring himself to splurge on a luxury, however small it was. He bought a cup of tea and a bag of fire flakes instead.

He sat down on a ton that smelled like it was full of fish, sipped his tea, and stared as the last stragglers hurried past him on the way to the parade ground. He didn’t want to think. But…

They’d blown it. _He’d_ blown it. 

The General should have known better than to entrust Jee with Zuko’s safety. Look what he’d done. Jee had ruined Zuko’s victory, and he was fairly sure Zhao had managed to use him to twist Zuko’s arm in some way - in some kind of elaborate bit of blackmail over that spirits-damned secret that everyone but Jee seemed to be in on. 

He’d been worse than useless.

…He’d been _told_ this might happen. Coal and ashes, the General had practically spelled it out. He’d been told to pay attention. He’d been told…

_Don’t leave him alone out there. Not even for a moment._

And here he was _still_ making it worse, sipping tea and contemplating the grey clouds overhead while Zhao could be convincing Zuko of absolutely anything right at this moment.

Jee’s feet were in motion before he’d even finished the thought. He dropped the tea in the mud, stuffed the fire flakes in his sleeve and the sleeve into its brace, and ran as fast as he could without looking suspicious.

He slipped back inside the parade ground in the thinning stream of eager spectators, stopping next to the open sides of the wooden stands. He scanned his surroundings for anyone who might be paying attention to one lone soldier dawdling by the gate. Careful now… If the guards caught him, they’d assume he was trying to sneak up on Zhao for some kind of attack.

But no one was watching as Jee slipped around the pillar to his right and into the forest of poles and planks under the stands. It was dark, but there was enough light spilling in between people’s feet that Jee could at least make sure he didn’t trip as he tried to make his way to the seats of honor. Still, it was slow going. The ground was bone dry under here, where little rain could reach, and it was a constant battle not to sneeze from the dust he was kicking up, or the dirt that fell on him from above as people stomped and settled on the planks.

He knew he was close when the darkness began to fade into half-light, with only one small patch of darkness ahead near the front of the stands. The spectators would be giving the seats of honor a wide berth.

Zhao and Zuko weren’t entirely alone: there were five other pairs of over-polished officer’s boots, but they were still sitting a respectful distance away from the two in the middle. Zhao’s boots were the shiniest of them all. Zuko’s looked scuffed in comparison, leather dark with use and wear, the stripes of red fabric around his ankles faded and fraying at the edges. The leather hugged his calves so tightly that it looked likely to cut off his circulation. Jee hadn’t really noticed when he dressed the brat that morning. It was a testament to the skill of the cobbler that the boots hadn’t ripped under the pressure of Zuko’s thickening muscles, the way the brat’s other clothes did all the time, according to his uncle.

 _He grows so fast now, I don’t have a prayer of keeping up,_ the General had said once or twice. 

The boots looked painfully tight and just as painfully small next to Zhao’s broader legs. Suddenly, absurdly, all Jee wanted in the world was a golden sen so he could buy Zuko a nice pair of well-fitted boots.

What a stupid idea. Some new footwear wouldn’t even make a dent in the laundry list of things Zuko needed right now, and besides, Jee didn’t have a golden sen. Though maybe if he dug in the cracks of his sea chest, he must have dropped a few coppers down there over the years…

Jee shook his head. _Idiot._

He crept forward as silently as he could, until he was so close to Zuko that he could have reached out and touch the brat’s ankle.

“What are we waiting for?” he heard Zuko say. His voice was dulled by the chattering of the whole arena outside, and it sounded like Jee was listening through three layers of woolen bedsheets.

“For the sun to break through the clouds, Highness,” Zhao answered. “Though we’ll get started in a few minutes even if it doesn’t. It will rain again soon. We can have an Agni Kai without direct sunlight if we really must, but in the rain is out of the question.”

Zuko muttered something unintelligible.

Jee crouched against a pole, one knee planted securely on the earth for balance, and made his breathing as slow and shallow as he could to bank every wisp of fire left in him. It was a risk, to let his flame die down to barely more than a simmering coal: it would slow his reaction speed if he was discovered and attacked. But it was worth it to avoid Zhao - or Zuko - noticing him. 

Luckily, it was barely a minute before the wan light falling between the bleachers and the spectators’ legs took on a warmer, more golden hue.

“Ahh. The sun is pleased,” Zhao said. “An excellent day for an Agni Kai after all. Although I regret that I’ll probably lose a good officer today, it was time my troops had something to get excited about. There’s very few diversions for them in this soggy outpost.”

“Agni Kai aren’t for people’s amusement,” Zuko grumbled.

“It’s not their official purpose,” Zhao agreed easily. “But in practice, Agni Kai are for the audience as much as the fighters, Highness. All these men and women are here to watch their officers prove their mettle. They want to be impressed. They look forward to a show, a display of great bending prowess, and honor in both loss and victory. Any fighter who does not give them that will emerge with their authority severely diminished. An Agni Kai is a show.” A pause. “Had you not realized that by now?”

Zuko was usually so quick to answer any challenge or question that his momentary silence felt unreal. It was disconcerting not to be able to see his face, hard to read as it usually was.

“Your troops are unmannered,” he finally snapped. “Nobody in my father’s palace would dare eat fire flakes at an Agni Kai. Or chatter like a troupe of hog-monkeys.” It was an odd thing to say, and Jee got the distinct impression that Zuko was avoiding the question.

If Zhao was annoyed, he didn’t let it show in his voice.

“You’ve been sailing the world for over two years, Highness. You know that as much as we on the front lines love and respect our Fire Lord, we have to do some things differently from how they’re done in Caldera. Lowborn folk need to be given a certain amount of leeway. They weren’t educated to have manners.”

“I know that.”

Now a hint of rebuke was creeping into Zhao’s tone. “You’ve grown uncouth as well, Prince Zuko. You really should be more discerning about whom you fraternize with. Sailors’ bad manners rub off easily.” A pregnant pause. “As do their diseases. A word of advice - use your hands instead of your mouth as much as possible, and never touch your lips to a cock that has a strange discoloration or a bad smell. Some of these illnesses can cause rot in the face. You’re more than disadvantaged enough in that area already.” 

Jee blinked. Surely he hadn’t just heard…

“I’m _not_ …” Zuko had to take a few breaths before he seemed to recover. “Shut the _fuck_ up!”

The fingers of Zhao’s left hand rapped a merry rhythm on the plank beside him, where Zuko couldn’t see. “I’d be careful with the Lieutenant in particular. Did you know he served on my ship for a few years? We had an outbreak of the clap among the sailors at one point, and I seem to remember he was one of the unlucky idiots affected.”

It took every ounce of self-control Jee had not to grab Zhao by the ankles and burn the bastard’s feet right off. That was _years_ ago. He was perfectly fine now. 

“Ugh! Stop talking about… that! And about things that are none of your business!” Zuko sounded like he was standing naked in a vat of slugs. “And stop insulting me!”

“Very well, Highness, I will stop. If you promise to be careful of the pubic lice as well.”

Jee almost expected another outburst, perhaps even a fireball. But after a few moments of speechlessness, Zuko leaned over, as if he was putting his face in his hands.

“What do you _want_ from me?”

“My apologies, Highness. I forgot my manners,” Zhao said at once, as if he truly regretted riling up Zuko just now. “What I want is for you to listen to what I have to say. Listen, and not fly into a rage the moment you hear something that offends you.” 

“I’ll be offended whenever I please!”

Zhao lowered his voice to that annoying fake whisper again. “I wouldn’t suggest making a spectacle of yourself here, Highness. It’s a public place.”

Yes. It was, wasn’t it? And an occasion where Zuko couldn’t interrupt the sanctity of the proceedings by even raising his voice. Clever bastard.

Jee closed his eyes and concentrated on once more dampening every spark of anger, every flare of worry that might give his presence away. He very much doubted that either Zuko or Zhao were paying enough attention to sense him close by, but better safe than sorry.

The bench creaked hard as Zhao suddenly rose to his feet.

Almost at once, a thick blanket of silence began to roll across the parade ground, starting to either side of the seats of honor and spreading out along the stands until not a whisper of chatter remained. Even the wood of the bleachers stopped creaking, as if no one even dared move a muscle.

Just when Jee thought his heart would burst from the tension, Zhao’s voice rang out, cast deep from the belly to carry through the whole parade ground.

“Sons and daughters of fire! We are here because Captain Shu Chanyu has challenged Deputy Lieutenant Wei Wen, and both have placed their lives and their honor in the hands of Agni!”

The silent stands erupted in a deafening roar that reverberated in Jee’s ears like an earthquake. It stopped as abruptly as it had started, probably because Zhao had raised his hand.

“Their fight is all the more blessed today because we also have the great honor of being joined by one of the Sun’s own blood - Prince Zuko of Caldera!”

The renewed roaring that followed that announcement made Zuko shoot to his feet like someone had jerked him upwards by the scruff of the neck. Jee almost snickered.

Zhao must have been even more amused, but he just silenced the crowd again and spoke on. “As the highest-ranking officer present here, and as my guest, Prince Zuko will ask the sun to bless this fight and these combatants.” 

Jee didn’t even have to see Zuko’s fingers twitch in surprise to be able to tell that this had _not_ been agreed upon beforehand. The brat’s fire spiked like a torch in a draft.

A few moments passed. Silence stretched on so long that murmurs began to rise from the crowd.

Then Zhao spoke up again, but under his breath this time. “You do remember the words, Highness?”

“Of course,” Zuko said at once. He sounded faint, and strangely far away.

“Then say them, Highness. Everyone is waiting.”

There was another heartbeat of tense silence. Jee squinted against the pale sunlight that was reaching his face now that both Zuko and Zhao were standing up. 

“Lord Agni, dayflame, hear your child!” Zuko’s voice rang out loud and surprisingly clear. “See those who fight to honor your name! Bless them with fire, with heart and fortitude, and let them bring glory to you and their Fire Lord!”

His shouts didn’t carry as far as Zhao’s had -- he clearly hadn’t gone through any voice-throwing training before he’d been kicked out of the Fire Nation. He managed well enough, though. If there was one thing Zuko was a natural at, it was producing ten times the volume you’d expect from someone his size.

The crowd seemed pleased enough with him. They roared again with no small amount of enthusiasm, although Jee was sure they’d cheer for a cow-hippo in a pink kimono if one presented itself. They were clearly in the mood for noise.

“Well spoken, Highness,” Zhao said as he lowered himself on the bench again. He actually sounded rather happy.

Zuko sat down so heavily that the wood groaned.

“Why are you doing this?” His voice was soft and hoarse from yelling.

Zhao leaned in a bit, perhaps to be heard over the renewed excitement in the stands. The opponents would be taking their places right now, fists on the earth and heads bowed as they begged Agni to grant them strength. Jee couldn’t help but feel a twinge of excitement as he rose a bit on his own knees, just enough to be able to spy a bit of the arena between Zhao and Zuko’s sides.

“I mean you no ill, Prince Zuko. I merely meant to test your fortitude and memory. You did very well.” 

“Yeah, I can tell,” Zuko sighed. There was a tremble in his voice that hadn’t been there when he’d pronounced the blessing.

“I truly don’t mean you ill. You know better than anyone that a little challenge can teach a man very much, Highness.” 

The noise beyond them began to fade, and Zhao straightened again. “Here comes the gong ringer. Take a few more moments to observe the fight, Highness. I expect it will take quite a while, so we’ll have plenty of time to discuss how we may assist one another.”

Zuko’s hiss of frustration was drowned out almost entirely by the sound of the gong and the roar of the crowd. Still, it was sharp and full of renewed fight, so reassuringly familiar that Jee felt a small stab of hope.

“Just spit it out, Zhao! What do you want to negotiate about?”

“Very well, Highness,” Zhao murmured as the glow of the first fire blast shone between their feet. “First, I want you to hear me out and not take offense at anything I say. You deserve honesty, and one day you’ll thank me for giving it to you.”

The fire in the air shifted, as if Zuko was drawing in breath.

“You have permission to speak,” he sighed.

“Thank you, Highness,” Zhao drawled, as if Zuko had had any choice at all. But then his voice turned low but insistent, and suddenly strangely free of mockery again. “Listen now. Your uncle’s been coddling you for far too long. Your father cast you out because you’re not fit to lead a nation, and you’ve done nothing to redeem yourself. You’ve wasted almost three years chasing rumors and ghosts. You’re still a failure and you’re still a disgrace.” 

Zuko hissed again, loud, fierce, and Jee pulled his face back to keep his sideburns out of the way of the sparks flying from the brat’s fingers.

“How _dare_ you…”

“Stop saying that,” Zhao interrupted. “Be honest with yourself. If you think I’m wrong, bring some actual arguments.”

A heavy pause.

“I don’t care what you think of me. You don’t matter,” Zuko snapped.

“Possibly not. But _you_ matter, Prince Zuko. You’re the crown prince of our great nation, and your shame and cowardice reflects upon us all.”

Zhao sounded almost quiet, insistent now. 

“You can do better than this. Your failure to redeem yourself is the fault of those who guide you just as much as your own. Your uncle is long past his prime. His years have addled his mind and made him soft.”

Zuko’s hand on the bench tightened into a fist.

“Don’t you dare speak about my uncle, Zhao!”

Zhao went on as if the outburst hadn’t happened. “As I said, Prince Zuko, one day you will thank me for my honesty. Mark my words, you _will_ find that General Iroh has not been preparing you well for the tasks that should be yours. He doesn’t care about your quest.”

“Yes, he does. He helps me. He’s helped me right from the start!”

“He does not want you to succeed,” Zhao enunciated slowly. “Does he ever challenge you at all? Does he test your courage and endurance during every training session? Has he taught you the kind of high-level combat bending you’d need to defeat the Avatar? Has he taught you how to generate lightning, a skill that out of the entire royal family, only you lack? Has he given you scrolls of spirit histories to study? Has he told you about his own travels through the spirit world? Has he told you that there are better sources of information about the Avatar than old wives tales passed on from peasant to peasant? Has he told you about the scrolls that lie hidden under the sands of the Si Wong?”

“…No,” Zuko said after a moment. He sounded as thoroughly confused as Jee felt. According to every single veteran he’d ever met who’d been stationed anywhere near the Si Wong, it was the dullest collection of sand piles to be found anywhere in the world.

“Just as I thought.” Zhao sounded genuinely disappointed, but Jee knew better than to fall for it. He hoped Zuko did too. “General Iroh isn’t interested in helping you find the Avatar. He’s tired of his long life of combat, and now he only wants to cruise around the world with no goals and no responsibilities.” 

“You filthy liar,” Zuko snarled. “You have no idea what my uncle’s like. He wouldn’t keep anything from me if it would lead me to the Avatar! He cares for me!”

“Yes,” Zhao agreed at once. “He _loves_ you, Prince Zuko. He loves you with all his heart. And that’s why he wants you to remain afraid of fighting. He wants to keep you ignorant and wrapped in cotton, far away from the real dangers you’d have to face if you ever came anywhere near the Avatar. He can’t afford to lose you. There are no other princes with whom he could replace his lost son.”

“My uncle doesn’t think like that.” Zuko’s voice was hard and cold, cracked with hurt. 

Zhao didn’t reply except with a low hum.

Jee felt his nails dig into his palms. _Bastard. Bastard._ For Zuko, this would be so much more believable than saying the General didn’t care about him. So much more believable and so much worse.

As Zhao let the silence drag on, the sounds of the parade ground around them began to tug at Jee’s awareness again. The crowds in the stands were talking again, occasionally erupting in _ooohs_ and _aaaaahs_ when they saw something they liked. There was so much lower chatter in between the shouting that Jee knew even without being able to see that the fight wasn’t getting truly spectacular just yet. 

He could get a feel for how things were going just by the way the pulsing of the opponents’ flames changed. They were trading blows with steady regularity, hard but controlled, sounding each other out. The fires felt evenly matched on the surface, but Jee had enough experience probing and analyzing the bending of young army trainees to sense the difference in quality between the two of them even at this distance. One of the fires was forceful but still loose, almost relaxed. The other was at least as strong, but trying much harder to get there. Younger. Less experienced.

Jee almost felt bad for the deputy lieutenant. She was keeping pace, but it was clearly taking far more out of her than was safe at this point in the fight. Not a good sign.

Her fire was becoming noticeably strained by the time Zhao spoke again.

“What I say is true, Prince Zuko. And you may find this hard to believe, but I’m not pleased that your uncle is keeping you safe and dumb. I hate to see potential go to waste.” There was a brief pause as the crowd cheered for something or other. “You fought well today. I’m impressed. You lost, but you did well. You used your head, and you tried to deal with me instead of letting lofty ideals about honor and justice get in the way of what you needed to achieve.”

“Thanks,” Zuko snarled. He sounded exhausted almost to the point of tears.

“I mean what I say.” Zhao’s voice was now so low that Jee struggled to understand him. “Maybe you can still become a prince fit for the royal court. If you get yourself a teacher who lets you grow instead of trying to keep you stunted.”

A beat of silence. “What, someone like _you_?”

_What?_

“You don’t believe I could teach you useful skills?” Zhao sounded honestly curious.

“…No.”

Jee caught the sliver of hesitation. It made him want to burn a hole through the stands in front of him, grab Zuko around the middle, and bodily carry him back to the ship right now.

“You’re wise to be cautious,” Zhao said. “I haven’t been kind to you in the past few years, because I’ve never seen any reason to be kind towards hopeless failures. The Fire Navy is a place for adults fighting wars, not a safe home for spoiled children, or…” The crowd roared again, drowning out the tail end of the sentence. “But as I said, you’ve convinced me that I may have underestimated you.”

“I’m so flattered,” Zuko sneered. “As _I_ said, I don’t care what you think of me. My father is the only one who can decide whether I’ve done enough to regain my honor. And I’ll never trust you.”

“Allow me to give you a token of my faith and sincerity.” Zhao sounded business-like, as if he truly believed that Zuko’s worries were completely reasonable and deserved to be assuaged. “I’ll forget about our earlier disagreement, and lend you whatever you need to mount your South Pole expedition.”

No. No.

“No,” Zuko said again, exactly a heartbeat too late.

“Yes. You will benefit fully from all the resources I can command. I will arrange for your gear and your plating, and five months’ worth of provisions. I will give you ten benders to complement your crew - it’s too small right now to be able to escort you safely in hostile territory, and half of your soldiers are grandfathers. I will also send along my best firebending instructor, who will teach you the sort of serious combat bending that you see performed in front of your eyes right now. You’ll never be fit to do battle with an Avatar if you keep wasting time with the children’s exercises that General Iroh is keeping you distracted with.” 

Zhao paused to let the crowd throw in another roar. “I will also request weather reports for you, and reports on all incursions made into Southern Water Tribe territory by the Southern Raiders in the past few years. I will order all ships in the area to communicate with you about ice fields and other potential dangers, and to resupply you when you ask, instead of ignoring you as they usually do an exile. You would be deferred to as if you were carrying out this expedition on my personal orders.”

Silence.

“What do you want in return?”

_No, you flaming idiot child, NO._

“Only that you remember who helped you when your need was dire. And that you forget about all those threats you made earlier, of course.” Zhao cleared his throat. “Use my money well and train hard. I will write to you with advice, and I want you to promise that you will read my words carefully and consider what I say. Send me a report about your travels once a month. Return to Ishihama as soon as you leave the polar seas. We can discuss other arrangements between us at that point, once you’ve had time to discover that I can be true to my word and that the help I offer is real.”

“But when do I need to pay the money back?” Zuko snapped.

The wood creaked as Zhao shifted. “The gold is the least important part of what I propose, Prince Zuko, but if you must be reassured… You may take as long as you need to repay my loan, and there will be no interest. I know your sense of honor will compel you to reimburse me as soon as you’re able.”

“What if I can’t ever pay you back?”

_Finally. Reason._

“If it does come to that, we can agree on a different way for you to compensate me.”

Zuko’s voice rang out, suddenly so loud that Jee almost betrayed himself by taking in a large gasp of air. It was a stroke of insane good fortune that the spectators chose that moment to cheer some particularly spectacular move in the arena.

“What do you _want_ from me?”

Zhao was silent for a moment.

“I want you to let me teach you how to raise yourself up to where you belong. And to remember who lifted you once you’re there.”

This was the largest pile of steaming rhino dung Jee had ever smelled, seen, or heard in his entire life. 

“I don’t have anything to learn from you.”

_Damn right._

“You’ve already learned from me.” Zhao sounded almost proud. “You learned well.”

“I don’t need anything from you.” There was hesitation creeping into Zuko’s voice, just a whisper of it, but enough to make the hairs on Jee’s arms stand up.

“You’re not competent to stand at your father’s side at this moment, and you know it. I’m offering you a chance to learn through a different path. Your current teachers are failing you.”

Jee had only a split second to wonder about the plural, and if Zuko had noticed it, before the crowd roared again.

“…out of your mind,” Zuko was saying. “You were threatening to tell the whole world all my secrets just a few minutes ago!”

“That battle is over. You lost, but as I said, your performance was impressive. You showed much more cleverness and backbone than I expected. Prince Zuko, if you stop behaving like a child who needs to be threatened into doing the smart thing, I’ll stop treating you as such. If you keep my secrets, I’ll keep yours, and we can discuss our issues and challenges as adults in the future.” A pause. “Think of this as an alliance, if you will.”

“I’m not a child. I haven’t been in ages.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You really have grown. Welcome to the world of men, Prince Zuko.”

Zuko took a breath so deep that every firebender in the vicinity would have felt it if they hadn’t been concentrating on the fight.

“Can you help me get the Avatar?”

Jee’s heart sank.

“I can’t make any promises,” Zhao said at once. “If I knew a way to find the Avatar, I would have dragged him in front of the Fire Lord’s throne long before now. But perhaps I can help you go home through other means. If you prove yourself sufficiently skilled at warfare and courageous in battle, the Fire Lord may agree to revoke your banishment even if you don’t have the Avatar.”

“I _will_ go home by fulfilling the task my father set me. I won’t ask for an _easier_ job!”

“Stranger things have happened, but I think even you know it’s not very likely that you’ll find the Avatar. Not when so many stronger and wiser searchers have failed.”

“It’s possible.” Zuko’s voice was tight, too controlled.

“It’s possible. Unlike many of our Navy’s foolish officers, Prince Zuko, I do actually believe - I _know_ \- that long-hidden spirits can be found. But possible does not mean likely. I would advise you to start working on a contingency plan, so that you can return home even if the Avatar continues to elude you.”

“It doesn’t matter how long it takes. I’ll fulfill my task, because my father commanded me.” 

“A noble sentiment, Prince Zuko, but also a childish and unreasonable one. Minimize the time you spend away from Caldera. Your political position won’t improve with time, and the court won’t want a prince it doesn’t know. You must return as soon as possible.”

“I’m _trying_!” All the feeling that had been missing from Zuko’s voice came flooding back, fierce and desperate. “I’ve been trying everything I could think of for years, but I can’t find him, and what use are you to me if you can’t help me find the Avatar?”

“As I said, there are other ways to distinguish yourself and regain the regard of the Fire Lord. If you were given charge of important missions, or cooperated with other military leaders to undertake tasks to greatly increase the standing of our nation in the world, you could give the Fire Lord clear evidence of your readiness to lead. Impress him with how you’ve grown. Show him what you can do.” Zhao’s voice dropped into something close to a whisper. “I can give you opportunities to do these things.”

Zuko took another deep breath.

“I…” 

He said nothing.

“You must be fed up with being surrounded by people who don’t believe in you, Prince Zuko. Surely you tire of having to carry the weight of your convictions all by yourself, with no support from your uncle or your crew.”

Zuko’s silence was painfully long.

“I’m satisfied with my crew. There are good men in it,” he finally said.

“People like the good Lieutenant?” Jee twitched, then dug his fingertips into his thighs to remind himself not to move. “Don’t expect too much of him, Highness. He has no ambition and precious few talents.”

Ugly fucker.

“I’m _entirely_ satisfied with Lieutenant Jee, his assistance is invaluable,” Zuko snapped with a very flattering amount of vehemence.

But Jee knew that the brat didn’t really mean that. Jee had never given him any reason to believe that he had even a shred of faith in the Avatar-hunting mission that meant the world and more to Zuko. 

The abrupt stab of shame was hot in Jee’s gut. He’d never felt that he was letting anyone down by not working hard. Not until now.

Zhao made an annoying tut-tutting sound. “The Lieutenant will do whatever you tell him to, because you outrank him and he has to obey. But is he actually trying to help you get what you desire the most, Prince Zuko? Or is he just offering you some kisses and a warm bed?”

“You have no right to question me on things that aren’t any of your business!”

_Tell him!_

“You didn’t answer my question, Highness. How, precisely, has the good Lieutenant aided you in your quest?”

“By obeying my orders. He’s a member of my crew.” Zuko sounded like he thought Zhao was touched in the head if he expected anything more from Jee.

That smarted. It really did.

“Oh, I’m sure the man tries his best, Highness. But he can only do for you… he can only _dream_ for you what is within his limits to dream.”

“What?” Zuko sounded as bewildered as he was annoyed.

“He can imagine you as a decent firebender and a good ship’s commander, so he can lead you to that point. He doesn’t have the knowledge or the ambition to imagine you in Caldera, with a golden flame in your hair and your father’s hand on your shoulder, and hundreds bowing just to touch their foreheads to the ground you walk on.” There was a strange, almost hypnotic quality to Zhao’s voice all of a sudden, as if he was describing a scene he was seeing in front of his eyes right this very moment. “That’s no personal fault of the Lieutenant’s, even if he did never make any serious effort to expand his horizons. There’s simply no way for someone of such humble birth to envision you as a true prince.”

A strange, heavy pause.

“Or to envision you on your father’s throne.”

Zuko’s reply was immediate, and a great deal sharper and less tired than he’d been sounding in the past hour. “What did you just say?”

Jee blinked. What was that about?

“I’m only musing aloud, Highness,” Zhao sussed. “The Lieutenant is only interested in amusing you with bedroom tricks so you’ll keep visiting his bunk. It’s not unlike how General Iroh only cares about keeping you safe for his own sake. These people may have fairly honest intentions, but they won’t try their best to help you return to your father’s side. Your uncle doesn’t want you to return at all, and the Lieutenant is incapable of offering you any meaningful aid.”

That wasn’t true. It wasn’t. Even if it was.

“But as I said, I can give you opportunities that could put you on a path back to Caldera. Perhaps very soon.”

He’d barely finished the sentence when Zuko cut across him, low and urgent.

“How soon? How long until I could go back?”

The blind yearning in his voice scraped across Jee’s skin like a rusted bolt.

“That will depend on your hard work. I can make no promises,” Zhao said. “But you may be able to offer invaluable assistance to me in my attack on the Northern Water Tribe. I hear you’re already a capable warrior in your own right, and it would be an inspiration to my men to see a member of the royal family fighting alongside them. And you could do me a great favor by bringing your uncle with you. General Iroh may have lost much of his vigor, but his strategic genius is legendary for a reason.”

“My father will be angry with me if I support a military campaign he didn’t authorize.” Zuko sounded like he was afraid his father would come storming into the parade ground and start boxing him around the ears for even considering such disobedience.

“Stop thinking like a child, Prince Zuko. If you want to show that you’re a mature and decisive leader, you must take risks and work on your own initiative instead of pestering the Fire Lord about permission for every little thing you want to do. Show your father that you can be trusted to make bold and wise decisions by yourself. Show him that you’re pragmatic and strong. You can do so much more for the nation if you focus on achievable goals rather than on chasing phantoms.”

A few beats of silence.

“You’re going to get thousands of people killed if you attack the Northern Water Tribe.”

“Sacrifices must be made in war. Don’t tell me you haven’t learned from your past errors in this regard.”

Zuko’s fire shook.

“I…”

A sudden loud gasp that seemed to come from the whole crowd simultaneously stopped Zuko in his tracks. 

The brat’s fire seemed to tighten as if it was preparing to deflect a blow, and Jee found himself rising up to intervene - defend -

Nothing happened, except Zhao whistling out a low note of surprise.

What was going on out there? Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, Jee shifted to the left a little until he was sitting directly between Zhao and Zuko instead of right behind his commander. He squinted in between their legs, trying to catch sight of the scene in the parade ground.

Oh. It was over.

Deputy Lieutenant Wei was on her back. From this distance, Jee couldn’t tell which of the red burns on her skin had been the one to knock her down, but she was clearly done. Her arms were still moving, jerkily, as if she was trying to get up.

Poor girl.

Her opponent strode over. The captain seemed to be favoring one leg, but he was very clearly still in fair shape. 

Jee fought the urge to squeeze his eyes shut as the man’s fist rose in the air, flame gathering around it. What a shame. Such a brave young woman - barely more than a child, really, she hadn’t looked much more than her mid-twenties when Jee saw her earlier today. She must have been a very talented soldier to rise to deputy lieutenant at that age.

The light on Jee’s face shifted as Zuko moved his legs, bringing them close together. His fire was hunching in on itself along with his body. Jee felt a pang of sympathy. Zuko might have seen men die in battle, but this was probably the first time he witnessed an execution after a duel. 

And Jee wasn’t going to lie, it was always hard to see young fighters die. No matter how honorably.

The bench creaked as Zhao leaned over, as if he was going to whisper into Zuko’s burned ear.

“Watch closely, Prince Zuko. That is how it should go.”

The respectful silence in the arena stretched on for long seconds, enough for Jee to murmur a quiet prayer to Agni that He might guide Deputy Lieutenant Wei’s spirit. 

Fire blossomed around Captain Shu’s fist. It turned from yellow to white as he heated it up for the finishing blow, and the light it cast through the whole arena became so bright for a moment that it almost blinded even Jee…

…but not so badly that he missed the sudden whirl of movement at the Captain’s feet, a tumble of red and black as the woman he’d thought mortally wounded twisted her weight onto her hands and lashed out with both legs high in the air.

Her feet swooped down at the last moment, catching her opponent in the ankles with terrifying precision. 

The searing light of the white fire blinked out like a candle-flame as Captain Shu went down with a scream of pain. 

For a moment, the whole arena was so silent that Jee could actually hear the _whooooosh_ of Deputy Lieutenant Wei’s long ponytail snapping through the air as she landed on her feet.

“Hooo,” Zhao exclaimed softly. Zuko’s fire was frozen stiff, as if he didn’t dare breathe at all. Out of the corner of his eye, Jee could see that the brat was on his feet again.

Deputy Lieutenant Wei didn’t bother with niceties like gathering her chi until her fire was white-hot enough to pulverize her opponent’s head without even really touching it. She launched herself forward two steps with the momentum of her landing and punched straight at the Captain’s face.

Captain Shu had barely begun to cry out when flame engulfed his head as if it was a ball of tar. He went down like a sack of rice.

Jee stared, open-mouthed, at the woman’s heaving back. It gleamed with sweat in the wan sunlight, and her hair was plastered to her skin in crazy swirls and tangles that very much resembled the wild, desperate fire she’d just cast. 

The deep silence was rent apart by another strike of the gong.

Almost at once, the creaking of benches began to fill the air as the whole audience rose to its feet. Zhao did the same, joining Zuko. 

Zhao bowed, and as one, the audience followed his lead. Jee couldn’t bow in the cramped space between the pillars, but he lowered his head anyway. It was a struggle to focus his swimming thoughts on the spirit of Captain Shu instead of the one he’d been praying for just seconds earlier. He’d seen spectacular turnarounds in duels and even full-blown Agni Kai before, but this…

An instant after Zhao began to straighten, the gong rang again, and the stands exploded.

Jee had to bite his lip. The instinct to join in with the roar of hundreds of his brethren was hot and fierce. He focused instead on banking his fire again before either Zhao or Zuko noticed the flare-up of chi behind their backs. They weren’t yelling, but they were definitely clapping, Jee could tell by the way they stood. 

It was a long time before they sat down again and obscured Jee’s view of Deputy Lieutenant Wei thrusting two shaking but triumphant fists in the air, and several more minutes after that before the din in the stands quieted down enough that anyone could hope to make himself heard while speaking.

“Magnificent,” Zhao said, voice thick with admiration. It was quite possibly the only time Jee had ever heard the bastard express a genuine emotion that wasn’t anger. “She turned her relative weakness into an advantage, luring her opponent into believing she was finished so he’d give her an opening to strike with the last of her strength. What a risk to take! Did you see, Prince Zuko?”

“Of course I saw.” Zuko sounded very hoarse, as if he didn’t have a speck of moisture left in his throat.

“I noticed you’d closed your eyes when he prepared to…”

“I didn’t. The sun blinded me,” Zuko snapped.

Zhao ignored it. The crowd’s screaming wasn’t letting up, and Zhao lifted his hands and began to clap again. “Magnificent,” he repeated. “Look at her, Prince Zuko. Look at how she stands as if the sun itself shines in her breast, and look at how they all adore her. That could be you one day.”

Zuko was silent. It was a long time before the crowd’s cheering began to die down.

Then they began to file out of the parade ground, and the noise of bleachers creaking, feet shuffling and men talking immediately got so loud that Jee had to strain his ears to catch the rest of the conversation taking place right in front of him. A new arrival had shown up right in front of Zhao and Zuko. Jee couldn’t see them clearly, but it wasn’t likely to be anyone but the victor.

“A brave fight, Deputy Lieutenant. You do us proud,” Zhao said.

“Thank you, sir!” Her voice was hoarse from maintaining combat breathing, but she sounded so elated that Jee felt the corners of his mouth twitch in sympathetic joy. He craned his neck again to catch a glimpse of her shining face as she rose from a deep bow.

There was a moment of expectant silence, just long enough to be awkward.

“You do us proud,” Zuko finally echoed. He sounded like there was something stuck in his throat.

The woman immediately dropped into her bow again. She was shaking all over. Sweat was dropping from her hair, and everything from her breastband to the ties around her bare ankles looked soaked. She was going to collapse after all if Zhao didn’t dismiss her in a hurry.

“Thank you, Highness,” she gasped.

Thankfully, Zhao took over again.

“Your honor is intact, Deputy Lieutenant. Indeed, it’s significantly increased by your victory today. You have the right to claim a boon from your opponent’s possessions. What is it?”

She swallowed. “Captain Shu’s command of the _Hishi_ , sir!”

“It’s yours,” Zhao said. He didn’t sound surprised.

“Thank you, sir!”

“As Captain Shu’s direct superior, it falls to me to write a report for Caldera and a message for his family. Get your injuries looked after, then present yourself at my command tent to add your testimony to my report.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Dismissed,” Zhao said as he waved her away. Then, “Do you need a drink of water, Prince Zuko? You look pale.”

“No.”

“Suit yourself,” Zhao said amicably. 

He settled back into a more comfortable position on the bleachers and remained blessedly quiet for a few minutes. 

When would he _go_ already? Both of Jee’s knees were screaming bloody murder by now, and he could swear the air was getting colder. Judging by the quality of the light out there, the clouds had taken over the sky again.

“Will you consider the offer I made earlier, Highness?”

“You’re trying to trick me,” Zuko almost sighed. It didn’t sound like an accusation. It sounded like he was resigned to it already.

“Possibly,” Zhao conceded. “You have no way to know. But sometimes we have to take a great risk to reap great rewards. Look at Deputy Lieutenant… _Captain_ Wei. She’s wanted her own command for years, but she knew that her young age and men like Captain Shu would keep her from gaining a captaincy for maybe decades if she let things run their natural course. She saw an opportunity when Captain Shu gave an order that she might plausibly object to, and she took it. The gamble was enormous, but she got what she wanted the most.”

Then, just as the first drop landed on the bench and splattered into Jee’s face, “Oh, it seems the rain is back. Let us go, Highness. You can probably make it back to your ship before it picks up. Unless you’d like to join me in my tent again?”

Zuko stayed put. 

“Wait. You mean she insulted him on purpose so he’d challenge her to an Agni Kai?”

“I can hardly prove that she didn’t, can I now. Wouldn’t put it past her.” Wood creaked as Zhao rose to his feet. “Think of your own position, Prince Zuko. Consider that the tactics you’ve tried up to now to return home have left you farther away from your father’s side than ever. Think about how unlikely it is that you’ll get a chance like this again.”

Silence.

Finally, Zhao seemed to lose patience. “I must go now. My offer is valid until noon tomorrow. Take your time considering, Prince Zuko. Rashness is another thing you should grow out of.” 

Jee got a better view of him as he descended the steps into the arena. He was smiling at Zuko.

“If you wish to ask me more questions, I’ll be in my command tent this evening. Would you do me the honor of joining me for dinner?”

“Don’t count on it,” Zuko snapped. He didn’t rise to his feet. In fact, he looked like he was slumped over with his head in his hands again.

A soldier came trotting up to them from the direction of the parade ground entrance. He stopped next to Zhao and unfurled a thick bundle of cloth.

“Your cloak, sir…”

Zhao turned a bit to give the aide room to drape the fabric over his shoulders. Then he paused, plucked the cloak out of the man’s hands, and stepped onto the bleachers again to neatly drop it on Zuko’s shoulders.

“Hey, what…”

“Allow me, Highness. I couldn’t possibly wear this while my prince sits in the rain.”

He neatly spread the two sides of the cloak over Zuko’s lap, one over the other, to cover his arms and legs. Jee tried hard not to hiss.

“The cloak is new, Highness. You would honor me if you kept it as a gift. Have it shortened, I’m sure there’s someone on your crew who knows his way around needle and thread.”

Jee did, actually. Pretty well, even. The General had asked him to mend Zuko’s tunics a few times.

Zhao stood quiet and still for a moment. Then he reached out and touched Zuko on the back, just under where the cloak hid Zuko’s stiff shoulder guard. 

Jee was going to burn those fingers right off the bastard’s hand.

“You will not get a better offer from anyone else, Highness,” Zhao murmured. “You know this.”

Zuko didn’t draw away from him. 

“Enjoy your contemplations,” Zhao said as he straightened. Then he bowed and walked away. 

  


* * *

  


Jee waited for Zuko outside the entrance of the parade ground, like he’d been ordered to do. He waited until the scattered raindrops thickened into a steady shower, then a very _cold_ steady shower. 

No Zuko. 

When the crowd thinned out enough for Jee to peer into the arena, he could see the brat still sitting where Zhao had left him. He was no more than a speck of black between two wings of long empty bleachers, small enough for the sparrow-gulls overhead to swoop down and peck him up. He was also making no move to get up and leave.

Jee felt his mood blacken as drop after icy drop spattered down on his head and shoulder guards. _He_ didn’t have anyone giving him a stupid big cloak, his sore knees were spreading their misery outwards to every other bone in his body, and his throat was itching fiercely from all the dust he’d been inhaling while he had to sit still and listen to a litany of all his faults and old diseases. But Zuko looked like he was quite comfortable over there.

Little critter.

 _Fine, I’ll come get you_ , Jee groused to himself as he strode into the arena.

Zuko didn’t even look up when Jee arrived. He’d pulled the cloak’s hood up, and his face was almost completely in shadow.

All right, so he hadn’t been having a good day either. Far worse than Jee, actually. Jee took a deep breath and straightened up into the most proper, stiff-backed pose he could manage with his back starting to whine at him.

“Sir.” Jee tried not to sound too gruff. “How did it go?”

No reaction. 

Apparently it was time for the silent treatment. But usually Jee got the screaming treatment whenever Zuko was unhappy about anything, no matter whose fault it was, so he reckoned he should probably enjoy the uncharacteristic quiet while it lasted. If Zuko’s past brooding fits were anything to go by, he’d be finding his voice again very quickly.

If acting the respectful subordinate didn’t help, maybe the friendlier approach would. Jee looked around to make sure there was no one left to observe them, then lowered himself down beside Zuko. On the other side from where Zhao had been sitting - the scarred side of Zuko’s face still gave Jee the shivers sometimes, and he could think of few things more disgusting than touching any part of his body to something that had been warmed by Zhao’s ass. Still, sitting was barely more comfortable than standing. The plank under Jee’s hands was already gritty with rain and dust. 

He looked to the side. The cloak was so dark brown it was almost black. It looked expensive, with at least one layer of waterproof leather and fluffy reddish mink-deer lining on the inside. It made Zuko look twice as bulky as Jee knew he was, especially with the shoulder guards flaring out to either side of him.

Jee watched droplets of water spread on the leather as the silence between them stretched past morose and into outright unnerving. Silence was the most dangerous thing one could encounter when wrangling volatile people, be they rowdy sailors or angry young princes. Noise was normal and healthy. So long as they were screaming, you at least knew what they were thinking.

“Sir…?”

Zuko made an unhappy grumbling noise and twisted his hands together in his lap, but that was it.

Jee had no idea what to say, especially since most of his thoughts were currently running towards variations on _I told you this would happen_. He _had_ warned the brat, and never let it be said that he wasn’t as petty as a grown man could get away with. He’d known that Zuko would fail against Zhao. There had been no chance.

The only surprising thing that had happened today was that Zuko had come so close to winning.

 _He likes treats_ , Jee reminded himself as he desperately cast about for a way to get the brat to do _anything_. He tugged his left sleeve out of its brace and pulled out the little packages stashed away there.

“Sir, I got you some fire flakes. And your bone crackers from this morning.”

Jee reheated one of the crackers between his hands, then unwrapped it and offered it to Zuko. Maybe the smell of food would make him perk up. 

Or not, given that he’d just had a large meal in Zhao’s tent.

No reaction. 

Jee opened his mouth to say whatever would leap onto his tongue first - probably something ill-advised - when Zuko took a very deep breath and looked up.

“Lieutenant. I apologize for… that spectacle in the tent,” he said, voice hoarse. 

Jee blinked.

“It was unworthy of a commander,” Zuko went on, quickly, as if he’d been rehearsing this. “…I failed. I apologize.”

Jee blinked some more.

It was an apology, from the brat prince, a gift as rare as a golden phoenix. Jee should be wanting to treasure it, revel in it. 

But something told him that he shouldn’t. Something wasn’t right about this. The brat shouldn’t sound so utterly crushed and ashamed just because he’d lost an argument. _Especially since you helped him lose it._

“It’s no matter, sir,” Jee said. They’d both failed equally badly. It _did_ matter, and Jee was trying hard not to think about how on earth they were going to solve their money problems now, but the next step towards a solution was definitely going home and having a stiff drink. At least nobody was dead or injured so far. It could have been worse.

Zuko didn’t seem to think so. He was looking up at the command tower of the _Taikai_ where it loomed over the seaward edge of the parade ground, like he wouldn’t really mind walking out there and tipping himself into the harbor. Jee would have been actually worried about that if it had been anyone else, but Zuko wasn’t the type to give up on anything for long. The poor bugger would be back to his usual shouty and obstinate self after a bit of moping.

Or so Jee hoped. He was counting on it. He was also getting quite cold.

So was the fish. It would be stupid to waste it, and Jee was starting to feel his lack of a decent lunch. He withdrew his offering and bit into the bone cracker himself. It was _very_ good. There were actual spices on it, Jee realized as he threw Zuko a surprised glance. Had he broken into the galley?

Zuko pushed a pebble off the plank with one finger and watched it fall onto the sand among the raindrops. He seemed a thousand miles away.

“Lieutenant?”

Jee quickly swallowed down the mouthful of fried fish he’d just bitten off. Zuko pushed the cloak’s hood back far enough to expose most of his face.

“Sir?” 

Zuko folded his hands on top of his knees. There was a strange glint of disquiet in his eyes. Fear, almost.

“Would you ever mutiny, Lieutenant?”

Jee opened his mouth, then sighed. And he’d been doing such a good job banishing all memories of that disastrous tent conversation from his mind.

“Sir, forget about what Zhao said. Every mutineer on trial whips out that bit in the Naval Code about being obliged to disobey dishonorable commanders. It never sticks. If people mutinied upon every commander who ever does something dishonorable, the Navy wouldn’t have ten commanders left by the winter solstice.” 

Zuko frowned. “But would _you_ mutiny?”

Jee tilted his head until it was at the same angle as Zuko’s. The lack of confidence should be insulting, but he had to admit it was somewhat understandable. A little. Maybe. 

It _was_ , coming from an inexperienced child who obviously understood much less about the military than he pretended. Jee had never given Zuko much reason to believe that Jee wouldn’t disobey him whenever it suited him. But the gap between casual disobedience and being prepared to stage a mutiny was as wide as the Gates of Azulon.

“Sir, I can’t imagine why I would do such a thing,” Jee said as earnestly as he could.

He paused to think. It was a little mean of him to push while the brat was beaten and miserable, but this wasn’t just his curiosity talking. “If there’s something you did that I’d be mad enough about to mutiny, sir, you should just tell me now so we can talk it out.”

Zuko blinked, once. Then he pulled his legs up until he could hug his calves. He ducked his head until only his good eye was visible between the rim of the cloak and his scuffed knees.

“Is it whatever Zhao was talking about before? What you did to get banished?”

Dirt gnashed audibly between Zuko’s boot heels and the bench. The eye narrowed to a yellow slit as the air between them began to heat up.

Jee pitched his voice low. _All safe here._ "Sir, I'm over twice your age. I've had decades to find out about every sort of dishonorable behavior anyone’s ever thought of.” And to try most of it for himself. "I really don't mean for this to sound belittling, sir, but I can’t imagine what a child of thirteen could have done that would shock me. Just tell me, and then Zhao doesn’t have anything to hold over your head with regards to me, and we can look for a solution together."

The eye disappeared under the cloak’s hood.

Jee sighed and shifted into a more comfortable sitting position on the hard wood. He couldn’t feel the dirt and wetness through his armor just yet, but that would no doubt change soon.

Another glance at Zuko’s huddled form had Jee wishing that Zhao would turn up again, just so Jee could wedge his fat head between the bleachers and beat him until he cried for his mother. The brat had been trusting Jee just fine this morning. He’d been talking, at least a little. Then he’d spent just a few hours with Zhao, and now they were back to _this_.

Jee felt like something had been taken from him and he hadn’t even tried to hold on to it. It made him feel confused, and guilty, and mad.

He didn’t want the brat to believe that Zhao could turn Jee against him. The mere idea of Zuko being _afraid_ of him made Jee’s chest ache.

“Please, sir,” he whispered. 

Nothing. Zuko didn’t move, made no sound.

It was hard to keep from feeling too disappointed. _Zhao spent all morning messing with his head, and he just saw a man get his face burned off. He’s out of sorts. More than usual. Don’t take it personally, I wouldn’t trust me right now if I were him._

“Fine, sir, just…” he began.

"I messed up."

It was such a soft whisper that for a moment, Jee was certain he’d misheard. Work on the docks outside the parade ground had picked up again, and the din was quite loud even here.

He looked to the side. Zuko was fiddling with the arm braces Jee had tied for him that morning, picking at the knots without actually trying to undo them. He’d lifted his head just enough that most of his face was visible again. He was staring into the arena, at the patch of blackened sand where Captain Shu had died.

Dull yellow eyes shot to Jee for a heartbeat. 

“Before. When I got banished.”

Jee nodded, taking care not to change his expression in the slightest. He barely dared to breathe.

“What did you mess up, sir?”

“Something important. Like today.” His lisp was much worse than usual. “I had to do something, and I didn’t. Because I was a coward.”

Jee shifted his position on the plank. The whine in his lower back was turning into something that _throbbed_ , and he wished he could stand up and move around.

“What was it, sir?”

Zuko shook his head. It was a small but very final gesture.

All right, then. Maybe they could talk about this again some other time, in a place with a roof over it. Jee’s hair felt plastered to his head from the rain.

He made as if to get up, hoping that Zuko would take the hint. He didn’t.

“…Sir, what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” Zuko sighed. It came out so easily - so naturally - that Jee could barely believe it was less than a day since he’d first heard the brat admit he didn’t know what to do about something.

“Sir, perhaps if we speak with your uncle after all…”

“Uncle will take this all as an opportunity to make me give up,” Zuko said at once. “Zhao’s right. Uncle doesn’t want me to find the Avatar.”

He sounded so utterly unsurprised, so resigned, that Jee knew with a sudden flash of certainty that Zhao hadn’t been telling the brat anything new when it came to the General’s lack of enthusiasm for their quest. They’d talked about this before, hadn’t they? Zuko knew that the General didn’t give a flying hog-monkey crap about finding the Avatar.

A small stream of water found its way down Jee’s neck and under his shoulder guard. He shook his head in irritation.

“Sir, let’s go home. It’s cold here.”

Zuko looked up. He blinked at Jee’s probably very bedraggled appearance, as if he’d only just realized that someone else was getting rained upon while he moped. 

“Oh. Fine.” 

They still ended up taking a roundabout route back to the ship, as much as that was possible when there was nothing but a mostly straight stretch of dock between the parade ground and their destination. Zuko was dragging his feet, meandering around puddles instead of splashing through them like he usually would. He had to hold his cloak up to keep it from getting muddy.

Things got boring quickly once they emerged from under the hulking shadow of the _Taikai_ \- and such a _gorgeous_ new ship she was, Zhao didn’t deserve her. There were only a handful of other steamers in the harbor right now, and fewer and fewer people about as the rain really picked up and drove the workers indoors. 

They did pass the Kyoshi boats, moored in a neat row in a space that would usually be taken up by one whole Fire Nation steamer. Zuko gave them a wide berth, as if he was afraid someone might try to talk to him. Men and women clad in green and blue were hurrying to get cargo off the narrow decks and out of the rain - small barrels, a few crates that clanged with the sound of metalware, some bundles wrapped in white paper that looked like fine fabrics. Most of the goods were probably for trading on on to rich Earth Kingdom merchants who wanted Fire Nation silk and spice. They couldn’t be caught buying from the enemy directly, but getting it through fellow dirt grubbers was fine, Jee supposed. Kyoshi Island wouldn’t have much use for finery. It was a harsh, cold place known mostly for its advantageous trading location, its convenient neutral status, and a lot of snow and fish.

It sounded like a great place to be in right now. Anywhere but here.

Jee looked to the side at the wall of silence that Zuko had thrown up, and decided to just spit out what he wanted to say.

“Please don’t accept Zhao’s offer, sir.”

The thick cloak shifted on Zuko’s shoulders, as if he was about to look at Jee. But he kept his face forward and mostly out of sight.

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have Zhao finance our expedition,” he said, ignoring Jee’s very quiet groan. “It’s not like he’s coming with us to the South Pole. And there’s a good chance that I’ll find the Avatar there. If I do, then we can all go home and I’ll be with Father and I’ll barely ever see Zhao again.”

Jee sighed. 

“You know you’ll still be in his debt, sir.” 

A shrug. “Father will give me the money if I find the Avatar.”

“And what if you don’t, sir? What if you can’t pay him back?”

Zuko seemed to hesitate for a moment.

“I’ll figure something out.”

For spirits’ sake. He was such a child sometimes. Often.

“Sir, you can’t accept a loan of thousands of golden sen without some kind of plan to pay it back! Or without knowing for sure what’ll happen if you can’t pay!”

Another shrug. “Sure I can, I’d figure something out. And it’s not your problem, Lieutenant. You can just go home whether I fail or not.”

“I know, sir, but…”

It was, objectively speaking, not his problem. But it felt like it anyway.

Zuko had gone quiet. It was a careful sort of silence, and when Jee glanced to the side, he caught a very unfamiliar hesitance on the brat’s face. It was almost like Zuko had realized that Jee was annoyed with him. He was starting to do so well with this consideration-of-others thing, Jee should give him a cookie when they got back to the ship.

“Sir,” Jee tried again. “You must be able to see that this would be a _stupid_ thing to do!”

Zuko’s hesitant frown turned into a full-blown glower.

“Stupid or not, it’s my only way to make things right! Do you have a better idea? Even if I don’t go to the South Pole, _and I’m going_ , we’ll run out of money in months!”

No, Jee still didn’t have a better idea. And that was the whole problem, wasn’t it.

“No, sir,” he admitted. “But I do know that this is _not_ the way!”

“But why do you _care_ if I owe Zhao money?! It’s not your problem, nobody’s going to come and steal your wages if I can’t pay that loan back!” Zuko exclaimed. He sounded like he was truly, honestly flummoxed by every single word out of Jee’s mouth. “You’re always yelling at me about taking better care of the men! Don’t you want to be on a proper expedition for once? We could have quality supplies and proper rations and support from the other ships. Thick coats and everything. Wouldn’t you… the crew like that?”

Enough. Jee could tell the brat was trying to get him to say that accepting the loan was a good idea, and it almost made him happy to think that Zuko wanted his approval for something. 

But the idea that Jee would be willing to sell away his brat to that greaseball _Zhao_ in exchange for softer ship biscuits was just insulting.

“Sir,” Jee said, loud and clear, determined to persevere however angry Zuko got. “No amount of comfort is worth you indebting yourself to Zhao.”

The weirdly hopeful look on Zuko’s face twisted into irritation.

“You keep saying that like it matters anything to _you!_ It’s my business if I decide to make alliances to advance myself. People do this all the time. It’s not like I have my pick of rich nobles lining up to finance my mission. What’s it to you where your pay comes from, so long as you get it?”

Jee sighed.

“Sir, it matters to me if others want to touch my…” 

What was the word for this? He still didn’t know. 

But surely Zuko understood why a man wouldn’t be happy to turn over his… his companion to the first coin-laden pig who walked by. Not that there weren’t plenty of reasons why Zuko should hate this whole proposition for his own sake, but… Surely the brat had some idea of how _Jee_ would feel about this. 

The puzzled look on Zuko’s face was the opposite of understanding. Even moreso than before, if that was even possible.

“Why did you say that?”

“What, sir?” He hadn’t said anything. That was the whole point.

“About Zhao.”

 _What?_ “What?”

Zuko shook his head. “Why did you say Zhao wants to touch…”

Jee goggled at him in the sudden silence. He could feel Zuko’s fire sputter in confusion.

The brat looked like he was realizing he’d sat down on top of an underground hive of fire-ants. He started to peel his lips back from his teeth.

“…Sir? Are you all right?”

Zuko’s good eye had grown to the size of a sparrow-gull egg. The white was showing all around the gold.

“Wait, was he… Are you saying he wants me to stick with him because he wants… he wants…”

Zuko made a quick, choppy gesture at his groin that Jee recognized as a parody of sex only because he knew what he was looking at.

Jee stared at him. He hadn’t realized… He hadn’t _known_ …?

No. Surely nobody was that oblivious. 

“Sir, he’s been coming on to you for ages.”

Zuko’s mouth opened a full second before any sound came out.

“What do you mean? He hates me!” Zuko’s poor lone eyebrow seemed unable to decide what particular frown to settle in. “I think. He didn’t used to… I don’t know!”

_Oh spirits, why?_

“Sir, you don’t need to like a person to want to fuck them!”

Zuko’s face twisted into a mask of disgust so painful-looking that Jee immediately wished he’d just kept his trap shut.

“You’re making this up! He’s not coming on to me!”

"Why would I make this up? Sir, how can you have missed it? Every time he comes aboard, he gets so close to you that he's practically standing on your toes!" Jee lifted his hands in despair. He felt like he was trying to explain the sun to someone who’d never quite noticed that there was a big hot ball in the sky every day. "Sir, he _sniffs_ at you!"

Zuko stared at him, mouth open. Then he ripped the cloak from his shoulders and tried to throw it in a puddle. It got caught on his shoulder guards.

“AUGH!”

Jee watched him flail in astonishment. 

Right. All right. This was hideously embarrassing, but at least they were on some new level of understanding now. Possibly.

Zuko finally got the cloak off of him. Then he kicked it.

“This is disgusting!” 

“I know, sir,” Jee sighed. “Try not to think about it. I’m sorry I mentioned it. It’s… There are more important problems right now, sir, forget it.”

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose and took a few deep breaths. The rain was already running down his bald head in little rivulets.

“Ugh,” he muttered. “Let’s go home.”

Jee stared at the mass of dark leather and fur that was soaking up mud at their feet. Any gift of Zhao’s deserved to be thrown into the harbor, but he knew ten golden sen when he saw them.

“Are you going to leave that, sir? It could fetch a pretty price.”

“Oh, fine,” Zuko groused. He grabbed the cloak with one hand and started dragging it. 

There was nobody on deck when they arrived at the ship, except Bao, who was supposed to be on guard but stood huddled safe and dry just inside the ramp. 

“Get back to your post,” Jee snarled.

“Sir! Um, General Iroh sent a message saying he’ll be a few more hours with the quartermaster, and that…”

Excellent. Jee ignored the rest in favor of following Zuko’s slow ascent to his cabin. The cloak slithered up the stairs behind him like a large dead animal.

Jee prayed that they wouldn’t encounter anyone else, and for once, he got his wish.

As soon as Jee closed the cabin door, Zuko threw the pile of wet leather in a corner. Then he sat down on his futon with a miserable groan.

“What now? I didn’t get the gear or the plating, and I can’t sell things to make money here, and if we go elsewhere the pack ice will be closed by the time we get to the South Pole…” 

Jee sighed and patted his shoulder.

“Change into dry clothes first, sir. I’ll go get some paint stripper from my cabin.” Perhaps he could also nip down to the galley and see what Cook had left lying around from the midday meal. He had no idea if Zuko was hungry after that feast Zhao had stuffed him with, but Jee still hadn’t had more than a bite of fish since breakfast, and it was closer to evening than noon by now.

“I don’t want a drink,” Zuko muttered into his hands.

“It’ll help, sir. Give yourself a few moments to get your bearings again. You had an exhausting morning, and you saw a man die.”

Zuko rubbed his scar with one hand, as if it was itching from the rain. It distorted his sneer into an ugly grimace.

“I’m not scared of dead bodies, Lieutenant! I’ve seen them befo…” 

He stopped talking so abruptly that for a moment, Jee thought some assassin of Zhao’s had followed them onto the ship and snuck up behind them to slit Zuko’s vocal cords along with his throat.

But Zuko was fine. In fact, his face was suddenly alight with terrifying enthusiasm.

“Lieutenant,” he breathed. “That’s it!”

Jee frowned. “Sir?”

Zuko bounced to his feet so fast that Jee stumbled back.

“That’s it! I’ll challenge him to an Agni Kai! And when I win, I can make him give us our supplies and our plating!”

Jee could feel his heart - and his brain - skip a beat.

“What? But the deal you were…”

“I’m not going to make a deal with him, I’m going to burn his fat stinking head off!”

For a few moments, Jee felt overcome with relief that the brat was no longer considering offering himself to Zhao on a platter in exchange for some supplies and ship repairs. Then it dawned on him that that option had been replaced by a “get killed” option. 

“No!” he said, much too loudly -- Zuko actually jumped a little. 

Jee cast a quick glance at the door and made an effort to lower his voice. “Sir, you’d lose! The man is an excellent duelist.”

Zuko frowned. “So am I!”

He wasn’t bad at all, especially for a sixteen-year old. But he was also a sixteen-year-old. Maybe Zhao wouldn’t squash him like a bug, exactly, but the end result would still be painful humiliation at best. Or injury. Or worse.

“Sir, you’re good, but…” 

“I can do it,” Zuko snapped. He was pacing around the cabin now, with no purpose as far as Jee could tell. “I’m not afraid! He can’t treat me like this, and I _will_ fight for my honor!”

Jee tried to grab Zuko’s hand as soon as one passed by close enough for him to catch it. He missed.

“Sir…”

Zuko tried to glare a hole in the window. “Damned rain, I can’t fight Agni Kai in the rain, when is it going to stop… Lieutenant, what do you _want_?”

“Sir,” Jee said again, loud and clear, trying to project some authority without being actively disrespectful. This would be tricky. Zuko picked up on attempts to talk down to him like Lei picked up on the scent of dockside bars when the ship was still a mile away from harbor. “You lack experience, sir. You haven’t had time to build up the kind of sustained raw firepower that Zhao can bring to a fight. If you can’t win on stamina or pure strength, you need to win through technique, and you’re still on basic man-to-man combat in your lessons with General Iroh. You don’t know enough tricks to scrape a win against a stronger and more experienced opponent. Not yet!”

He’d expected anger, protestations. The look of disappointment that twisted Zuko’s face was shockingly ugly.

“Uncle is holding me back,” he spat.

_No, that’s just what Zhao wants you to believe._

“No, he’s not. Your esteemed uncle just wants you to learn things the right way,” Jee said. “Sir, I’ve trained young firebender soldiers for years. Please trust me on this. Now is not the time for you to challenge Zhao. Not yet!”

Zuko shook his head, fuming.

“I’ll be thirty by the time any of you think I’m ready to face a lame picken in combat! Stop treating me like I can’t fight for myself!” 

Child. _Child._

“Sir, how many Agni Kai have you even _seen?_ You could end up crippled! Or dead! What if he decides to make it to the death?” That wasn’t likely, the Fire Lord would never stand for anyone killing his son in the arena, but…

To Jee’s considerable alarm, Zuko didn’t look surprised at the idea of being gruesomely burned to a crisp. At all. The look he gave Jee was… grave. Nervous, but grave.

“Then I’ll have died honorably. I won’t back down.”

_Oh merciful spirits, he’s gone mad._

“Sir,” he tried again. “Please. I beg you, don’t… Please give this more time. We should think of other options.”

Fire trailed after Zuko’s hands when he thrust them out to either side of him. 

“ _What_ other options, Lieutenant?!”

Jee shook his head. “ _Anything_ but giving that man power over you! If you lose a fight and live, he’ll be able to demand anything he wants from you! If you accept his money, he’ll be holding it over your head forever! He’ll use you for whatever ends he fancies without giving a whit about your wellbeing. I’ll row you to the South Pole in a tub before I approve of you selling yourself off, sir.”

The mulish look slammed back over Zuko’s face so fast that Jee almost screamed in an attempt to take his words back. _You ass end of a rhino!_

“I don’t need your approval to do anything,” Zuko snarled. “And I’m not _selling myself off!_ I can look after my own interests! You’re not even trying to help me, you’re just telling me not to take the loan because you can’t stand the idea that someone else wants to touch me!”

That wasn’t true. Jee just didn’t know how to say how.

“Sir, please, I don’t want you to get in…”

Zuko’s eyes flashed with furious impatience.

“ _You have no claim over me, Lieutenant!_ ”

That cut. Deep. It was like he’d crammed Jee’s throat full of ice.

“Sir, _no_ , I want to help you…”

He reached out, but Zuko recoiled from his hands like they were live bat-snakes. 

“You’re not trying to _help_ me. You just want to fuck me. Like he does.”

Suddenly, absurdly, Jee felt like crying.

“Sir, that’s not _true_ , I… I…”

Before he could figure out exactly where this conversation had turned into some sick parody of itself, and what he could do to make it right, Zuko shouted over him.

“Then why aren’t you letting me help myself? What do you want from me!?”

He didn’t _know_ that, all he knew was that this - all of this, everything that had been said and done today - was wrong. Undeserved.

This shouldn’t be happening to the brat, and he shouldn’t have to go along with it.

“See,” Zuko hissed when Jee spent just a moment too long being stunned. “I knew it. I knew it. Zhao was right. You don’t want to help me go home.”

Jee could only shake his head desperately. _No._

“Sir, this isn’t fair. I have served you…”

“So I’d let you fuck me,” Zuko snarled. Smoke was rising up from between his balled fists, along with a horrible smell of burned skin. “You’re not helping me, all you’re doing is telling me to turn away from a chance to go home because you think someone else might try to… to seduce me!”

 _You’re hurting yourself_ , Jee thought helplessly, but all he could say was “No”.

“Liar,” Zuko hissed with such venom that it took Jee’s breath away. “What else are you obeying me for? I know you don’t respect me. I know you don’t care about my mission. At least Zhao believes I can find the Avatar!”

Jee squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. When he opened them, he immediately flinched away from the look of blazing hatred and betrayal twisting Zuko’s pale face.

No. What was _happening_ here?

“Sir, why are you saying… _Sir_ ,” he begged. “I told you, you’re a very handsome young man and I enjoy having you in my bed. Of course I do. I’d be crazy not to. But I also don’t want you to have to stoop to some dishonorable trade for the sake of a few pairs of snow shoes!”

Zuko spat flame.

“And what’s honorable about letting _you_ touch me? You’re just some useless soldier that my Uncle felt sorry for! You don’t even have your honor! At least Zhao still has a topknot!”

Oh.

Jee stared at him, repeating that a few times in his mind to make sure he’d heard it right. He had. 

The skin of his head began to prickle under his shorn hair, almost in time with the sparks dancing behind Zuko’s bared teeth. 

He stepped back. It wasn’t a conscious decision. He just wanted to be gone from here.

“Will you be needing me for anything else, sir?”

Zuko stared at him, eyes wide. His breath was coming in quick panting gasps. He looked half furious, half like he had no idea where he was and what had been coming out of his mouth for the last ten minutes. 

There was a flash of something horrified and guilty in his eyes, but it was gone almost as soon as it appeared.

“No. I don’t need you,” Zuko snarled as he turned away from Jee. He threw open his sea chest and started rummaging around. “I have to prepare for my Agni Kai. Leave and don’t bother me again.”

Jee looked at his back, the beautiful arcs of muscle that he’d been admiring just this morning, and swallowed against the lump in his throat.

He didn’t feel angry, Jee realized with some distant astonishment. He just wanted to ask _Why did you say that_ , but there was no air in his lungs at all.

Zuko rose to his feet again with a small package wrapped in shimmering fabric. Before Jee could get a good look at the mass of gold embroidery, Zuko dropped the cloth to reveal two shining golden Agni Kai bands. 

He threw them down on his altar, so hard that one of them slid off again. It hit the floor and started to spin on its own edge, around and around. 

The zing-zing sound of it felt a lot like what Jee’s brain was doing right now.

“Sir, please…”

Zuko slammed a hand down on the armband, grabbed it off the floor, and rounded on Jee with a snarl so furious that Jee _knew_ he was about to die with a white-hot golden ring embedded in his face.

“Did I stutter? Get out! I need to meditate! OUT!”

His voice cracked on the last word.

Jee backed out of the room as swiftly as he dared and slammed the door behind him. 

Then he found himself standing in his own cabin with no recollection of going down the stairs. The air in here was shockingly cool after the broiling heat of Zuko’s private space. Shockingly silent, too. 

It was still raining outside; there was a faint hiss of water against the glass of the narrow window, which cast only pale grey light over his bunk, his desk, and the meagre possessions scattered about. 

Jee took a deep breath, and another, until his fire had steadied again. Somewhat. It felt like it had crawled away deep into his bones, cowering away from Zuko’s rage.

 _This was nothing special_ , he tried to tell himself. _He’s said so much worse before. He does the screaming thing at least once a month, and at everyone on the ship._

Maybe. But Jee hadn’t been face to face with normal… with _Brat Prince Zuko_ in months. Not since the night where he’d stood opposite the boy with the smoking remains of the stupid mechanical bird between them, and seen something of himself in that poor lopsided face.

Jee’s legs were shaking.

He began to move across the room, slowly, carefully. _Step, step, step, turn, sit down, don’t miss the edge of the bed and land on your ass like an idiot._ He didn’t feel sure of his ability to perform even the simplest routine motion correctly right now.

He should be angry, he knew. Livid. He should be wanting to grab that little son of pig-hyena by the ankles and swing him overboard like a sack of offal from the galley. But he didn’t, not even a little. The thought of Zuko conjured up nothing more than a sense of dull, blank confusion. 

Jee had never felt this small in and useless in his life.

What had just happened? He’d been trying to… He’d been doing his _best_ to… 

_Deep breaths_ , he told himself. _Calmly now._

Zuko’s words sat like a cold stone in his stomach.

That stupid, naive _boy_. He’d managed to maneuver himself into a situation where he had no one to rely on except his dumb old Lieutenant, and look how that was working out. It was a miracle that he’d even bothered to ask Jee for help at all, what with the way Zhao had been throwing every possible kind of mud at Jee’s character. You’d think he’d been trying to convince the brat that Jee couldn’t be relied upon to put his boots on straight, and the stupid child _believed_ him, and …

Jee’s mind stumbled on the thought, as if it had missed the last rung of a ladder and landed on the ground wrong.

Agni in the sky, Jee deserved every single time that Zhao had called him stupid. 

The smarmy bastard was trying to isolate Zuko. He’d smelled that the brat was in trouble, and now he was wrangling him in a position where he couldn’t, or wouldn’t dare, ask for help while the great Zhao rode in and offered relief. He was trying to make Zuko believe that the General wouldn’t help him go home. That Jee couldn’t either - worse, that Jee might try to hold him back because he wanted Zuko for some nighttime fumbling. That Jee would drop him like a stone if he knew about whatever dumb secret was tied up with the brat’s banishment. 

No wonder Zhao felt it was safe to try and pull the brat in. Zuko was inexperienced, and out in the world without even a tenth of the vigilance and protection that a child in a palace would enjoy. He had only an uncle whom he no longer trusted enough to ask for help with things he was ashamed of or unsure about. Nobody knew that better than Jee. Zhao was taking advantage of the exact same circumstances that had allowed Jee to get his hands down the brat’s loincloth. 

Such a stinking tangle of nonsense - no wonder Zuko got too lost to remember who was on his side. But it didn’t even matter what was true or not, because Jee had just walked out on him. He’d helpfully confirmed that he wasn’t going to lift a finger to make anything useful happen. 

Zuko hadn’t known what to do or think, and he’d known he needed help, and he’d _asked_ for it, and Jee had gone and left him alone because he was a flaming moron who got offended by a few stinging words from a confused child.

He was just a boy. 

_Right._ Jee let himself sink back onto his bed, trying hard to think. It didn’t work very well. He was cold, and tired, and his head felt full of cotton, and his cabin smelled of rat droppings again…

Confound it all.

He’d fucked up, but the best thing he could do now was try to fix what he could. Talk to the brat again. He had to try. 

First he had to think of what to say, though. He could take a moment for that. Zuko wouldn’t storm out to see Zhao now, it was raining buckets and the weather wasn’t likely to change before nightfall…

Jee had been planning to get up and change out of his wet clothes, or at least dry them. He didn’t realize how tired he was until he put his head on his pillow. 

  


* * *

  


When Jee woke up, it was with a strange _clink_ noise echoing in his ears and something tugging at his fire.

For a moment he was utterly sure it was the sunrise he was feeling, and his eyes slammed open wide with terror - he’d fallen asleep, he’d snored through the whole damn _night_ , Zuko might already have left to go challenge Zhao…

But there was only darkness in front of him. It was the sort of thick gloom that came only from an overcast night at sea, and Jee breathed again in relief as he realized that it couldn’t be anywhere near dawn. Just before midnight, more like, there was a tone-deaf din going on downstairs that sounded like some of the men were having a little we’re-in-harbor-and-someone-sold-us-baiju party…

The noise again. It was a small metallic sound, and there were a thousand and one of those on the ship, so Jee’s sluggish brain almost passed over it entirely in favor of going back to sleep. However, he remembered just in time that he had to go and talk to Zuko again. 

Jee inhaled and tried to focus his fire. Whatever the hour, Zuko probably wasn’t in bed yet. He barely ever seemed to sleep at all, and anyway, you had to meditate all night before an Agni Kai. Not that Jee had bothered with that the few times he’d fought one himself, but Zuko was just the type to treat every little rule of the ritual like a life or death matter…

He was right there.

Zuko was sitting on the edge of the bed, near Jee’s feet. The contours of his limbs and hunched back took shape only slowly against the rest of the room. He was naked from the waist up, and he was cradling something in his lap, something that gleamed even in the grey dark of an overcast night - the armbands? 

_Clink,_ as if they’d been moved by some force too small to be visible. Zuko sat as still as a rock.

Then, a few seconds later, _clink_.

Jee frowned. The tugging was coming from Zuko, too - little cold shocks of flame, sputtering, grasping for fuel…

Without thinking, Jee conjured a ball of fire in his open hand.

Zuko’s head jerked up. He stared at Jee in mute shock, one hand pressed over his mouth, eyes wide.

He ducked his head away again too fast for Jee to get a good look, but the small flame had briefly lit most of his wet face, almost at the exact instant when Jee recognized the painful throb of the chi for what it was. 

_Fuck_.

Jee hastily snuffed out the flame, swallowed an apology, and fixed his eyes very firmly upon the ceiling. There was a brief, almost eerie moment of nothing - no movement, no sound, no tickle of fire. 

Then a low whimper rent the air, and Jee felt his mattress tremble as Zuko began to sob in earnest.

It took Jee a while to get his night vision back, but he found himself in no particularly hurry to get a closer look at… Whatever had gotten into Zuko. The brat was shaking, bent over until his forehead was almost on his knees, fingers curled in a death grip on the armbands against his stomach. He was doing a pretty good job of blocking whatever sound he was making, but he couldn’t hide how his fire throbbed along with every hitched breath. 

Jee’s fingers itched to reach out, to touch and anchor and soothe, but he didn’t dare… 

_Great sun, why are you crying, stop that, please stop that._

His hand came to rest just a breath away from Zuko’s thigh.

In the end, he waited for the shaking to die down almost entirely before he spoke up - softly, half-hoping that Zuko wouldn’t hear it.

“Sir… Sir, what’s wrong?”

A sniffle.

“I insulted your honor,” Zuko whispered wetly. 

Well. Yes, he’d been fantastically rude, but he’d been having these episodes for years and never seemed to feel very bad about them afterwards. This was hardly worth… 

Tears. By the ashes of Sozin and Azulon, why was he _crying?_ Was this even real, or some bad dream that Jee’s guilty conscience wanted to torment him with?

“…Yes, sir, but…”

“I’m sorry,” Zuko hiccuped.

Before Jee had gotten out a _What?_ , Zuko went on, as if his throat was crammed full of words and he had to vomit them out or choke.

“I meant no disrespect. I…” He looked Jee straight in the eyes all of a sudden, drawing in a painful-sounding breath. “I’m sorry I messed up. I didn’t mean to be a bad commander. I should have told you about the money earlier, and I should have talked to Uncle, and I shouldn’t have stolen things, and I…” 

Jee finally managed to align his muddled thoughts long enough to say something coherent. 

“Sir, wait… Did something happen? Are you injured?” 

The misery twisting Zuko’s face shut him up faster than a slap in the face.

“I messed up,” he choked. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and hunched over again. The golden bands in his hand jangled with the force of his gasping.

Jee had never seen or heard Zuko weep. Never, not even years ago when the brat barely came up to Jee’s chest and had a fresh burn over half of his face.

He shook his head, trying to find the right words, or anything at all to say. Something reassuring. Whatever, so long as it made this stop.

“Sir, I… It’s all right. I accept your apology. What you said was rude, but I’ve had a lot worse thrown at me.” _Usually by you_ , he didn’t add. “And I know you didn’t mean for things to get this bad. I also… messed up. _We_ messed up. We’ll figure something out…”

For a long moment, Zuko sat there quietly, even the rush of his fire seemingly suspended while he thought that over. 

“I’m _sorry_ ,” he gasped. It turned right into another heaving sob.

It wasn’t pretty crying. His whole body convulsed with every breath, and his cheeks were blotchy red under a sheen of tears. His good eye was so swollen that he looked like he’d been socked in the face. He was sniffing very hard, and judging by the slickness that was all over his fingers, he’d been wiping his nose with his hands whenever Jee wasn’t looking directly at him for a moment.

Jee stared at him in utter bafflement. 

“It’s… It wasn’t _that_ bad, sir.”

Zuko whimpered. He sounded sick.

“I don’t know what to do,” he wailed into his hands, the words mangled and muffled and wet.

 _You and me both._ Jee shook his head helplessly. He wanted to reach out pat Zuko’s head, or back, but he was afraid the brat might explode if touched. “Don’t… Sir, please don’t cry. Please stop.” 

It didn’t make a hog-monkey’s fart of a difference. He might as well be ordering the rain to stop falling.

To hell with this ridiculous, terrifying display. Jee stood up, walked over to his sea chest, and felt around in it in the dark until his fingers brushed the thin fabric of a handkerchief. He tore it in two as he stalked back to his bunk, then pressed one half of the thing against Zuko’s hand.

“Blow your nose.”

Zuko looked up at him over his wet fingers, eyes wide and uncomprehending.

“Sir, take this and blow your nose _now_ or I swear on the honor of my departed father, I’ll do it for you and you won’t like how that happens.”

He let the ripped handkerchief fall into Zuko’s lap, walked over to the can of water on his desk, and spent far longer than necessary wetting the other piece of cloth he was still holding. Finally, there were a few loud, soggy snorting sounds behind him.

Jee plucked the dirty cloth from Zuko’s shaking fingers, threw it somewhere on the floor, and began to clean the brat’s face. He kept the wet fabric hot and steaming as he dabbed at Zuko’s good eye, then the scarred one ( _don’t look too closely_ ), and then as he wiped down his cheeks and nose.

“Better,” he said more to himself than Zuko. He gave the brat’s fingers a quick wipe and then dropped the other cloth as well.

“What are you…” Zuko’s voice still sounded bubbly.

Jee ignored him. He sat down on the edge of the bed again, grabbed Zuko’s far shoulder, and pulled him down until his head was on Jee’s lap, cheek to where his heartbeat thrummed right under the skin of his thigh.

He struggled a little, weakly, but Jee kept him down with one hand on his shoulder and began to run the other up and down Zuko’s bare back. This was how Jee’s mother had quieted her children down when they were upset, and he’d discovered over the years that it worked very well on frightened young soldiers. Firebender or not, it was hard to keep panicking when you had your face pushed into the calm, steady beat of someone else’s chi and blood.

“Sir, it’s all right,” he said, gentle but firm, ignoring the scrabble of Zuko’s fingers against his leg, still fighting. “I accept your apology. I forgive you. Now breathe like you’re meditating. One breath for every four heartbeats you hear. Count them, starting right now.” 

He did. 

“Good,” Jee murmured after a minute or so. “Good boy.”

Zuko’s hands pressed warm against his leg, one balled in a fist, the other clutching at Jee’s pants. He hiccuped painfully in between every set of breaths. 

Jee groped under his pillow with his free hand, tugged out the small bag hidden there, and dug into it with two fingers. 

“Sir, do you want a pickled sugar plum? It’ll make you feel better.”

A sniff. It wasn’t a _no_ , so Jee held the candy in front of Zuko’s lips. 

The little ball was nipped from his fingers almost at once. Zuko turned his face into Jee’s leg again, mouth twisted. 

Jee watched his throat work as he suckled on the candy.

This was ridiculous. All of it. He had to think it was ridiculous, else it would break his heart.

It took Zuko a while longer to calm down. For a certain definition of “calm”, at least. He’d stopped making noises almost entirely, but he didn’t stop shivering no matter how long Jee patted his back and shoulders.

Jee upped the heat in his fingers a bit. 

“We’ll figure something out, sir.”

“Figure out _what?_ ” Zuko snarled into his leg with surprising ferocity, making Jee jump a little. “Either I give up my search for the Avatar and I never go home, or I die fighting, or I _sell myself_ to that stinking windbag.”

Jee sighed. He really should have phrased that differently before.

“Sir, I… I’m sorry I said that. It’s not actually bad to do what you have to do to survive. Maybe we’ll think of something in the morning, I’ll do my best to…”

Now Zuko lifted his head. His nose looked painfully chafed, and his angry red eyes said that he was _extremely_ sick of being promised that things would be okay.

“Don’t bother,” he said, an alarming hint of new tears warping his voice. “I’ll challenge him to an Agni Kai. I’ll fight him for our money and our supplies.” He had to pause for another hiccup. “And I’ll make him apologize on his knees for every single insult he did to me today. He’ll apologize!”

Whoa, whoa.

Jee’s hand enveloped Zuko’s whole fist much too easily. 

“Sir, _no_ , I told you you don’t yet have the combat skills to…”

Zuko snatched his hand back and swiped it across his eyes. It was no use, he was crying again.

“ _I. Will. Fight_ ,” he spat through his tears as he pushed himself up on both arms, easily breaking the pressure of Jee’s hand on his shoulder. “I’m not weak!”

“Sir, I know that…” Jee sighed. “Sir, you’re very brave. But I don’t understand why this has to happen. You can still tell your uncle about the money and have him help think of a solution, you can tell him you’ve been finding money through some means that aren’t stealing, I’ll back you up…”

“No! I’m not disappointing anyone again and I’m not letting others solve my problems!” He poked two fingers into Jee’s chest. His arm was shaking so badly that he almost jabbed Jee in the throat. “Don’t you dare tell my uncle! You swore.”

Jee almost fell back on the bed under the force of the pointed blow.

“I won’t, but…” _Owww._ “Sir, I just don’t want you hurt!”

Zuko shook his head and took a few deep breaths. He hiccuped, rubbed his eyes, and then began to pat Jee’s shoulder, as if _Jee_ was the one needing reassurance now.

“It’s my problem, Lieutenant. My screwup. I need to solve it by myself, and I’ll solve it fighting or I’ll… I’ll die with some honor, at least.” 

He sniffed loudly and wiped the back of his hand under his nose again.

Jee stared. He hadn’t just heard a snot-nosed child talk about dying with honor.

“Sir, there’s no _need_ for any of that, you…”

Zuko held up a hand and shook his head very decisively. 

“No. No, Lieutenant. See…” He shifted onto a more comfortable position on the bed and made a few abortive gestures with one hand, as if he was looking for words.

Then he stilled and looked up at Jee again. He seemed remarkably calm all of a sudden, as if some weight had fallen off his shoulders.

“This is for the best,” he said quietly. “For everyone. My father’s right, I’ve wasted enough time sailing around for over two years. I need to put an end to this. Either I find the Avatar, or I… I find another way to regain my honor.” He took a deep breath. “There’s no dishonor in dying in Agni Kai.”

Jee stared.

“But sir, there’s no need to kill yourself to redeem…”

Zuko glowered. “I’m not killing myself, don’t insult me. I’m going out there to win. All I’m saying is, if… if I die, then that will be… good enough.” He took a deep breath. “My father will be satisfied.”

He truly had gone mad.

“Sir, your honored father couldn’t possibly want you to die!”

Zuko went on as if Jee hadn’t said anything. “Uncle would be able to retire in Caldera, where it’s warm. You and the rest of the crew would be allowed to go back too. See the Fire Nation again. Find a better ship.” He’d closed his eyes, as if he was actually envisioning Jee and the General and the others home in the sun. “It would be all right.”

A horrible thought had been sneaking into Jee’s mind, and now it blossomed, sharp and poisonous. He hadn’t feared this since the brat had just come on board, and the General had taken Jee apart and said _If my nephew shows himself on deck, make sure someone is watching him at all times, especially at night_.

“Sir, do you want to die?”

“No. But I’m not afraid to.” A little shock when through Zuko’s fingers as he said it.

Jee squeezed back. 

“I… wish I could help you, sir. I’m sorry. I don’t understand why this has to happen.”

Zuko stared at down at their hands. He bit his lip, and nodded, and patted Jee’s fingers, and said nothing.

The sound of rain from outside rushed into the silence between them. Jee looked down at the fingers covering his own, white on top but roughened by sea and fire on the underside. 

Maybe he did understand, a little. He understood just wanting things to be over. Never mind all the insanity that was going on right now, the brat had always been completely miserable on the ship. He didn’t want to be on this stupid quest. He wanted to be at home with his family in the nice palace, away from stinking sailors and icy wind and the constant barrage of small, large, and downright stupid problems that came with a long voyage on a scrap heap of a ship.

Jee was very close to old, and he’d given up on ideas like a house and a family many years ago. His creaky ship with his joke of a crew full of veterans and criminals was good enough for him. More than he deserved after all he’d gotten up to, probably, and he was content with it. Sometimes he worried about growing old and sick without any children or grandchildren to care for him, but he supposed he’d make do. This was as far as he was going to get.

But Zuko…

It was a waste. Such a disgusting waste of a strong and healthy life. And tomorrow he was going to throw it away entirely - or worse. Not all Agni Kai ended in just death.

Jee coughed. “Sir, have you considered that if you challenge Zhao, he may just try to wound you so badly that you have to surrender? You’re more useful to him alive than dead. He wants power over you, not your life.”

A flash of horror and fury passed over Zuko’s face.

“I will never let myself be disgraced like that.”

Jee shook his head. “Sir, they probably taught you that the only honorable outcome of an Agni Kai is death, but that’s… not really how things actually go outside of stories. Plenty of Agni Kai end with the loser surviving. Sometimes the victor doesn’t want his opponent dead - you know that, you wouldn’t kill Zhao if you won, you need him alive. Or sometimes someone can tell they’re going to lose but they don’t want to die, so they surre…”

“They tear up their honor and piss on the shreds,” Zuko hissed with shocking ferocity. “ _Never._ ”

Jee blinked.

“Sir, if he wounds you skillfully enough, you may not get to choose whether you surrender or not.” Much as Jee hated to admit it, Zhao was definitely good enough to land that precise a blow, even against Zuko. The brat was fast and hard to hit, but once he tired himself out…

Zuko drew himself up so stiffly that he looked likely to snap his spine.

“I will _not_ be wounded. I’ll win or die!”

He still sounded fierce, but there was a hint of uncertainty there, and the unmistakable shrillness brought on by deep, _knowing_ fear.

The brat had ample reason to be scared. Jee had seen no few young benders swagger into their first Agni Kai with no idea what a serious combat burn was really like. They thought they knew what to expect because they’d gotten dozens of superficial burns in training, or because they’d been in deadly battles with a few dirt grubbers. 

But a blow from a rock or sword wasn’t a burn, and training was just training. People held back when they sparred, even unconsciously. Even serious training burns were almost never deep. It was impossible to prepare someone for what happened to their skin and flesh when another firebender hit them not for sport, but with the intent to kill. That kind of fire went right down to your bones and put a giant hole in you. Large scars like Zuko’s training injury were very exceptional, if only because few people who got hit like that survived their healing.

But that was it, wasn’t it? Zuko wasn’t one of those stupid green buggers who had no idea what pain was. He knew what could happen when another firebender really tried to hurt him.

Jee watched as Zuko rubbed at his eyes. Eye. He was avoiding the scar as if it was made of acid. Every time his hand brushed against it even a little, he jerked it back.

Oh. 

Jee almost groaned aloud at his own stupidity - he was going as blind as Cook and as deaf as Peng. 

The brat hadn’t come over here crying in the middle of the night because he felt bad about insulting Jee. He was crying because he was scared out of his wits.

And why wouldn’t he be? He was looking at a no-holds-barred fire duel against someone who was over a head taller than him and clearly the much better fighter. Zuko might be stupid, but he wasn’t unintelligent. He knew what his odds were, no matter how loudly he bluffed and boasted. He knew how much it was going to hurt. Of course he was fucking scared. He’d only just grown old enough for his first kiss, let alone _this_.

He’d chosen it. He wanted it. Jee didn’t understand why, but that wasn’t particularly remarkable or relevant. He had decades of experience executing orders whether he understood the reasoning behind them or not. Jee had frequently found himself at a loss to explain why people like Zuko or Zhao or the General did the things they did. They lived in a different world somewhere in their noble heads, with different rules and different wants and needs. But…

Jee couldn’t just say _This is what you wanted, deal with yourself_. The kid was crying. 

“All right, sir. All right,” Jee sussed as he opened his arms.

For a few moments, Zuko peered at him from between puffy eyelids, as if he was looking for some kind of deception somewhere on Jee’s face. 

Then he closed his eyes, sighed, and folded up in Jee’s arms as easily as a paper fan.

Jee stared down at him as he adjusted his arms so that Zuko could cling to him. This was… He couldn’t imagine that the brat might be _gone_ tomorrow. It was too absurd. This was just a crazy cart ride down a volcano slope, someone was going to step in and snap both Zuko and Zhao out of it…

Right, right, of _course_ , it was going to be all right.

“You won’t be able to keep this from your uncle, sir. I don’t know why he hasn’t come to bother you yet.” He’d be waylaying Zuko in the corridor the moment the brat stuck his head out the door, middle of the night or not.

“I sent him a note saying I was sick,” Zuko murmured. “He won’t come to check on me until after dawn, and I’ll be gone by then. He can’t stop me after I’ve issued the challenge.”

Jee tried not to sigh.

He could go straight to the General’s cabin the moment Zuko looked the other way or fell asleep. He could tell the old man everything. But that would get ugly, and the brat would _loathe_ Jee for it. He’d never trust him again. The kid was insane, but the one thing he was consistent about was that he didn’t want his uncle involved in anything. Jee wasn’t sure if it was out of fear or shame or both. Or out of sheer insanity. All he knew was that the idea of breaking faith with Zuko was insupportable. Apparently they were all mad today.

No, he wouldn’t do it unless there was absolutely no other choice. Not unless he truly couldn’t think of any way to solve it himself first.

And look at how great he was doing with that.

Zuko’s grip on his tunic changed.

“Lieutenant, will you go with me tomorrow?” 

Jee closed his eyes and whispered a soundless _I’m sorry_. Zuko wouldn’t be going out there. Either Jee was going to come up with a plan, or he was going to tell the General.

“Of course, sir.”

A sigh. 

“Can I sleep here?”

Jee hugged him a little tighter for a moment. He tried not to think of all the reasons why this might be the last night Zuko ever spent anywhere near him. “Yes, sir.”

Zuko sagged in his arms almost at once, letting himself slide down on the mattress next to Jee until he was horizontal. He exhaled as if he’d just made it through four hours of punishment training.

It was quite warm in here, with two firebenders in a small room, but Zuko _looked_ naked and cold in only the ceremonial uniform pants that officers tended to wear to Agni Kai. He was barefoot, damn him. Jee pulled his blanket out from under his own ass and draped it over Zuko, tucking it in under his feet and shoulder.

Zuko shifted and pressed his face into Jee’s side, muttering.

“What was that, sir?” The angle was a bit awkward - Jee had to crane his neck to the side and down to see more of the brat than the top of his shiny bald head.

A soft breath against his skin, and then Zuko shifted again so that at least most of his mouth was unobstructed.

“You’re kind,” he whispered.

Ah. Jee stroked a finger along the ridge of bone at the back of Zuko’s neck, up and down and up again.

“People are supposed to be kind to each other when they’re…” He was such an idiot, he still didn’t have a word for it. _Lovers_ seriously was not it.

“Shipmates?” Zuko said, very quietly.

Jee blinked. “What?”

Zuko’s voice turned even softer, if that was possible. “You said. Before. That I was part of your crew.”

Had he said that? The brat always remembered the strangest things. It was a little adorable, if Jee was honest with himself.

“You are, but you’re more than that, sir.” And oh, _there_ was the word he’d been wanting. “You’re my friend.”

A beat of silence.

“Oh,” Zuko whispered. Jee wasn’t sure, but he thought it sounded pleased.

Zuko’s hand, the one holding the armbands, snuck up Jee’s thigh and curled up on his stomach, right over the seat of his fire.

It took no time at all for Zuko’s breath to start slowing.

Jee didn’t sleep. His seated position on the bed was a little awkward, and there was some pressure at the back of his nose that made him think it had been unwise to walk around wet and cold outside instead of using the breath of fire. But mostly it was… other things. Everything.

He sat up drinking until the rain stopped spattering on the window, and until the sounds of revelry downstairs died away entirely, and then much longer.

Nothing. Nothing good enough. There were plenty of solutions to this that would leave Zuko alive and free, from informing the General to tying the brat to his bunk and sailing away from Ishihama. Solutions that would leave Zuko still trusting Jee were much fewer. Jee couldn’t think of a single plan that would accomplish both.

At least Zuko was getting some rest. He didn’t twitch even when Jee accidentally knocked him in the face with his bottle of paint stripper. The poor brat had to be exhausted, and sunrise was only a few hours away. He’d probably wake up and want to go out immediately.

And he expected Jee to go with him. He assumed that Jee was going to come along and watch him get slaughtered or burned to within an inch of his life. That Jee would stand still for that spectacle and bow to Zhao afterwards, because he was a good soldier who respected the sanctity of his country’s age-old rituals.

Jee took a long, deep breath to stave off the urge to blow up his own head. He felt Zuko’s fingers shift on his stomach.

_Clink._

The slow rush of fire next to Jee was warm, sleepy, and he tried to focus on it instead of his own restless chi. He lifted a hand and carefully traced the line of Zuko’s jaw, along his smooth chin and then up to the shell of his ear. 

He looked small like this, boyish, almost delicate, especially with his nose still raw and red from the bout of crying earlier. He really was much younger than you’d think just by hearing him, or looking at him, packed with muscle as he was. Jee had never met anyone as insanely devoted to his training as Zuko. Had to give him that. He was a thoughtless little terror, but he wasn’t…

He didn’t deserve this. He wasn’t some monster, just a… a stupid boy. He was obstinate, but there was real grit there, too. Talent at all sorts of odd things. Some too-eager, hungry form of kindness, when you put him in front of a rhino or plied him with sweets and alcohol and blowjobs. And more courage than most grown men had in their left foot. Terrified or not, he was going to go out there and challenge a master firebender to mortal combat because he thought it was the only honorable way out.

Jee’s finger had reached Zuko’s lower lip. It gave way under the gentle pressure, dipping to reveal a hint of white teeth.

_I haven’t even gotten to know you._

And it looked like he wouldn’t get much of a chance to. His time was up. Whether Zuko accepted that stupid loan or got himself kicked into submission in the arena, he wouldn’t be Jee’s anymore, even if they spent a few more months on the ship together. 

Zhao was right. Jee could do nothing for the brat, nothing that Zuko really needed. All Jee could give him was a warm bunk and some candy.

_You’re kind._

Jee’s fire roiled in his belly, and his breath was cut off by the force of it, a white-hot rush of hate and fury - at Zhao, at everything, but most of all at himself. 

Kind? _Kind?_ For giving this _child_ a few pats on the back and then allowing him to walk into battle?

This was madness. No sixteen-year-old had any business standing in an Agni Kai arena. The brat wasn’t ready - _look_ at him. If he were a grown man prepared to erase his dishonor with blood and fire or die trying, he’d have spent the night before his battle in prayer and meditation. Not sobbing into the tunic of the nearest adult. 

This was a disgraceful travesty and somebody had to put a stop it.

Jee sucked in a great lungful of air, to bank the fire and clear his head of the rush of dizzying protectiveness that made him want to hold Zuko and not let him go free until they were half a world away from this cursed place. It had been years since Ba Sing Se, many years since he’d last been called upon to go above and beyond, be better than he was. Years since the last time someone had truly needed him. 

He had _not_ done absolutely everything he could to fix this. He was _not_ out of options. 

He looked at the armbands still caught in Zuko’s fingers. They were beautiful - as perfectly round and golden as the sun itself, forged in temple fires and consecrated to Agni with prayer and offerings. Jee had never had the money or the standing to even think about getting his own. The few times he’d fought Agni Kai, he’d used Haisu’s bands.

The metallic gleam winked at Jee as Zuko’s hand shifted, as if it said _take us_.

_Clink._

Jee balled his fists. They seemed to be in perfect working order. He inhaled. His fire leapt up into his throat as if he hadn’t banished it only moments ago, alive and singing with anticipation.

Zuko’s sleeping face was lit as golden as the bands when Jee let some of the flame escape between his lips. The brat was drooling on Jee’s good clean bedsheets.

This was _not_ a good plan. Such a small likelihood of success. Jee had the advantage of being familiar with Zhao’s fighting style, and he was hardly a slouch when it came to dueling, but Zhao was good. More powerful. Better trained. Jee would have to get lucky to scrape a win against him - insanely lucky. But imagine…

Imagine if he won. Imagine if he could return to the ship and just _give_ Zuko everything he wanted.

This was a matter between his superiors. Interfering in their business, without Zuko’s knowledge or permission no less, would be unspeakably rude in five different ways and actively illegal in at least two. But propriety be damned. If he wasn’t willing to defend his commander’s honor after everything that had been said and done - if he wasn’t willing to stand between a _child_ and maiming or death - he wasn’t worth the fire the spirits had gifted him with.

Jee felt strangely light as he began to untangle his limbs from Zuko’s. The boy made a small, tired sound as Jee eased the Agni Kai bands from between his slack fingers.

He didn’t look back as he closed the cabin door behind him. 

Jee got only a few steps towards the stairs before he realized that he had to do more to keep the brat from coming after him. There was too little time. Zuko was clearly exhausted, he’d been utterly dead to the world for the past hours. But that was no guarantee that he’d sleep through dawn. Few firebenders ever did - some were good at rolling over and going to sleep again, but everyone woke up for at least a moment. Zuko was definitely not the rolling-over kind. Even if Jee caught Zhao right at sunrise, there would still be enough time for the brat to come tearing in and mess everything up. 

Jee took a long look at his door, and at the dull strip of easily-soldered iron lining the side of it. Zuko hadn’t learned how to melt metal yet… 

And an hour from now, a bit of outraged brat prince was going to be the least of Jee’s problems.

He placed his hand on the metal, sniggering. It took him three tries to solder the door shut properly. Simple forge-bending was a fairly straightforward job if you knew what to do, but it was such a struggle to focus his breath on his chi, rather than on laughing out loud at the idea of how livid Zuko was going to be. The screaming would wake every volcano spirit from here to Caldera. Or not. Hopefully Zuko would have the sense to stay put, instead of yelling for help and then having to explain to his uncle how he’d gotten himself locked in Jee’s cabin with no shirt on. Jee would be back an hour or two.

…Or not.

This was an _amazingly_ bad idea, Jee marveled as he inspected his handiwork. He was almost impressed with himself. He’d been in his twenties the last time he managed to cook up a plan this incredibly, thoroughly stupid.

He held the golden armbands on one hand carefully as he padded down the stairs, both out of respect for the sacred ornaments and to keep the metal from making any sounds that could draw attention. Against his broad palm, the circles seemed small and delicate, almost a child’s jewelry. He’d have to get Zhao’s Fire Sage to let the bands out for him, if he got that far. First things first.

Shi was on guard at the bow ramp, sleeping the sleep of the blissfully drunk. Jee’s fingers itched to grab him by his messy topknot and kick him down to the dock - this was inexcusable, they were practically in hostile territory here. He’d been far too lax on them all. For now, that was a good thing. Jee didn’t want an audience.

He trod down the bow ramp on the tips of his boots to keep from making a sound. Then he waited on the dock, out of sight under the ramp, for the night to end. 

The air was still heavy with wetness, but the cold was bracing now, sharpening Jee’s senses. Chi coiled through his veins as he breathed in and out, until his muscles felt full to bursting and his head drunk on battle-fire. It dulled the fear. And would make him more confident than was wise, Jee knew, but he rather needed the boost.

His fire _liked_ this plan. _Kill him. Kill._

Finally, a grey glow peeked out from behind the craggy mountaintops around Ishihama. Almost dawn. Jee tucked the armbands safely into his armor before marching into the camp.

The guards in front of Zhao’s tent escorted Jee inside immediately when he announced who he was. They didn’t even check with Zhao first. 

Just as Jee had hoped, Zhao was up already, in full armor and seated behind his desk, not a hair out of place. He barely even glanced up from the paper he was writing on.

“Good morning,” he drawled. “What news from your commander?”

Jee took a deep breath, mostly to quell the little inferno of panic in his gut. He was here, he couldn’t go back, and it would all be over less than an hour from now, one way or another. 

“I’m not here on Prince Zuko’s orders.”

Now Zhao did look up. His brows started to crawl up his forehead. 

Jee squared his shoulders and stood up so straight that it made his back groan in protest. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, he felt the spark of sunrise, and his fire leapt.

Zuko was awake.

_Think of how he’ll look at you if you win this for him._

“I challenge you to an Agni Kai.”


	12. In which best efforts are made, part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO much for the barrage of comments on the last chapter. They've sustained me through what was, ummm, another difficult year, writing-wise.
> 
> I also realized after a lot of chatting with like-minded souls that one of the reasons why I had so much trouble finishing the last couple of chapters was that the arc is relentlessly miserable. Zhao being a dick is a ton of fun, but it got a little too angsty, with no opportunities for levity at all. Must fix.
> 
> So in this chapter: blood! Shenanigans! Smooching! Surprise special guest character!
> 
> Many thanks to samalane for the beta <3

There was no reaction from Zhao at all, beyond a slow blink. 

“I refuse your challenge.” Zhao dipped his writing brush into the ink again, wiped it on the edge of the ink stone, and put it back to paper. “Don’t waste my time with silliness, I’m not stooping to a public honor duel with a disgrace like you. Does Prince Zuko agree to my proposal?”

Jee took a deep breath. He was used to being ignored, and he wasn’t here to wallow in resentment about how people like Zhao were allowed to talk down to him. He was here to do something right.

_Keep pushing._

“I’m not here on behalf of Prince Zuko,” he said. “If you don’t agree to fight me, I’ll tell General Iroh all about your illegal war preparations.”

Zhao looked up, eyes narrowed, and Jee took heart. The bastard _was_ afraid of the General, even if it was only a little. Maybe…

The tiny smirk on Zhao’s face snuffed out that hope like a bucket of water on a candle.

“I daresay General Iroh won’t hear a thing, unless you want him to find out about your _dalliance_ with his beloved nephew.” Zhao smiled. “I promised to keep Prince Zuko’s secrets in exchange for him keeping mine. I didn’t promise to protect _you_ from anything.”

And if he did that, the General would find out about Zuko’s secrets too. Bastard. Of course he’d find a way to weasel out of a solemn vow, and of course the stinking hog-monkey would do it too. If he did, it would surprise no one except that stupid _child_ who was just too wet behind the ears to properly mistrust adults. 

_He’s only a boy. He did his best._

And Jee was here to do the same. The General wasn’t going to find out about a thing; Jee could prevent it. All he had to do was win.

“Fight me,” he barked, with three times the bravery he actually felt. 

Zhao sighed. He got up, and all the muscles in Jee’s body seemed to tense all at once.

But Zhao only held a hand over the paper he’d been writing on, drying the ink with a gentle wave of heat.

“You should thank the Sun that you amuse me so much, Lieutenant. I’d incinerate you where you stand otherwise. What do you even want to challenge me for?” 

Zhao put the sheet on top of the pile to his left. The papers were all perfectly aligned, and Jee felt a terrible, childish urge to set them on fire.

“My commander’s honor. You insulted Prince Zuko, and I want satisfaction. Fight me or be called a coward!” 

“I refuse,” Zhao said again. The dismissal sounded so matter-of-fact, so free of the tiniest hint of interest or even disdain, that it made Jee’s blood boil. “You don’t have the rank to force me to fight you. If I were obliged to answer every challenge from every disgruntled soldier who thinks I wronged him, I’d be fighting Agni Kai all day. Tell everyone that I’m a coward if you wish, no one will care about the words of a nobody without even a topknot.”

He cocked his head and stared, unblinking, as if he was trying to read Jee’s mind.

“Are you _truly_ here on your own behalf? He didn’t send you to do this?”

“Prince Zuko would never allow anyone else to fight his battles,” Jee said.

Zhao stared at him for a few more moments. There was something calculating to it that set the hair on Jee’s arms on end, but it was gone too quickly for him to figure it out.

In the silence, Jee’s own breathing became louder and louder in his ears, until it sounded much like the heaving of the ship’s engines. But he waited. 

Zhao pulled a cloth from his desk, cleaned his brush with a few practiced swipes, and rearranged his writing implements in their pots. When he looked up at Jee again, he was smiling.

“I changed my mind,” he drawled. “I’ll allow you to spar with me in morning training. You may pretend it’s a real Agni Kai, if you like. I’ll even grant you a boon if you can defeat me. I’m sure that’s what you’re after anyway. Your supplies and ship plating, no?”

_Wait, what?_

Zhao rose to his feet and swept past Jee without waiting, towards the exit of the tent. 

“Keep up, Lieutenant, I don’t have all day. Not now,” he said to a soldier who was trying to get his attention.

It took Jee another moment to gather his wits. By the time he caught up with Zhao, they were already out of the tent and crossing the camp in the direction of the training ground.

This was actually happening.

 _Calmly now_ , he told himself as he drew level with Zhao. _You got what you wanted, or close enough. Not a single misstep now. You can manage to not to fuck anything up for fifteen minutes._

“If I win, you’ll give us the supplies and ice-proof plating that Prince Zuko demanded of you. And you won’t spread those filthy lies about Prince Zuko everywhere,” Jee clarified. He had to be sure he was getting what he needed.

Zhao sighed.

“But I already promised him all those things, Lieutenant. And money. And military advice and assistance. All he has to do in return is treat me with a little more respect. All these theatrics really aren’t necessary.” His bored expression briefly turned to a glower. “Walk three paces behind me like you’re supposed to.”

“You’ll give him his supplies and you’ll leave him alone. Swear it,” Jee said, not backing up.

Zhao rolled his eyes and resumed walking, nose in the air as if determined to ignore the stench of unwashed grunt standing too close to him.

“Yes, yes.” There was a hint of real irritation in his voice now, and it gave Jee hope. If he could manage to get Zhao riled up… Before Zhao did the same to him of course…

They’d reached the training ground by now. It was empty, except for a handful of older men who were throwing their armor on in something of a hurry. Apparently Zhao’s schedule was regular enough that his officers knew exactly when to cut their firebending practice short to make room for their commander.

Zhao nodded as they greeted him, waving them away. A few cast puzzled glances at Jee as they left, but none tried to stick around and watch. By the time Zhao had reached the fence bordering the training ground, they were alone.

No witnesses. Jee wasn’t sure what to make of that, but Zhao seemed quite happy about it; he was smirking again when he turned around to face Jee.

_Calmly now, calmly._

“I must admit, Lieutenant, your loyalty here is surprising. I’m sure I haven’t seen you display this much fervor in… Well, never. Is he that good a cocksucker?”

“Shut your mouth,” Jee snarled, then mentally kicked himself. _Don’t fuck this up._

Zhao didn’t look angry. He looked like he was looking forward to blowing Jee’s head up.

“Tell, me, Lieutenant. What boon will you give _me_ when…” He smiled. “Apologies. _If_ you lose.”

Jee blinked. He hadn’t considered this. What could he… What if the bastard tried to use him to get at Zuko?

Before he’d gotten a few seconds into the thought, Zhao chuckled and waved his hand. 

“Don’t strain yourself, Lieutenant, I was only jesting. You have nothing I want.” He dropped his tunic over the fence, then cracked his knuckles against his open palm, making his arm muscles bulge. “Or perhaps I could make you promise not to fuck the Prince first? You haven’t bent him over yet, have you? There was still a bit of innocence about him…”

Jee’s chestplate landed in the mud with a very unsatisfying _squelch_ sound.

“DON’T SAY ANOTHER WORD ABOUT HIM!”

Zhao laughed and shook his head. _Laughed._

“Lieutenant, I _jest_ ,” he drawled as he stretched his arms behind him, loosening his shoulders. “I certainly won’t mind if Prince Zuko’s well-trained by the time he comes to me.”

“You disgust me,” Jee snarled. One of his shirt’s ties ripped audibly as he jerked it up over his head.

Zhao’s smirk traveled from pile of clothes thrown haphazardly over the fence to Jee, to Jee’s bared arms with their collection of rough tattoos, then down to his gut. They lingered.

“It looks like you’ve been enjoying your sailor’s drink a bit too much, Lieutenant. You look fat. Fat and slow.”

It was a struggle for Jee not to suck in his stomach. He was _not_ going to be made to feel stupid just because he wasn’t quite all hard flat muscle anymore. Zuko sure as hell didn’t mind. And if Zhao thought Jee had gotten slow, he had a nasty surprise coming.

Jee took a deep breath, interlaced his fingers, and stretched his arms in front of him until his muscles trembled. He could feel his chi paths opening, letting fire rush into his hands until they throbbed with it, pulling Zuko’s hair tie tight around his wrist.

“…Is that royal silk around your arm, Lieutenant?”

 _Don’t react, don’t engage, he wants to distract you._ , Jee reminded himself as he kept his eyes firmly on the wrapping in front of him. The ribbon was long, and it came halfway up Jee’s forearm. The red fabric had taken on a soft, muted shine in the overcast morning. It looked very delicate and out of place.

“How fascinating,” the hated voice continued, now slightly to the left and back, as if Zhao was circling Jee before the fight had even begun. “You bring a token into battle… Or is it a trophy?”

Jee balled his fists and breathed in again, making his fingers glow red as he turned on his heel to keep Zhao in view. He didn’t actually trust the bastard not to fire a shot at someone’s back. No one on this training field was known to fight fair.

As if to show how unconcerned he was by the display of aggression, Zhao closed his eyes. He locked his feet in the leopard-crane stance and tightened his fists as he forced his lungs into a combat breathing rhythm.

When he looked up, he was smirking again.

“Last chance to back out, Lieutenant. Trust me, those few shreds of honor that Prince Zuko has left aren’t worth even your skin.”

 _This is a good fight. You have the right to teach him a lesson. He’s been doing you insult after insult for years_ , Jee reminded himself as he kept up the deep, fast breathing rhythm. He tried to ignore the thrum of a hostile fire so close to him – a fire that was more powerful, more controlled, and viciously menacing. 

_He’s been doing your commander insult after insult for years._ The memory of Zuko sitting on a cushion in that damned tent, paralyzed with shock and humiliation as Zhao’s words tore into him, made the fire in Jee’s belly churn in remembered fury.

He could do this. He had a chance. He _did_ have a chance – Zhao would underestimate him for sure, and Jee knew some tricks that they definitely didn’t teach the snooty noble officers in their fancy firebending lessons. 

He could make this happen. Fight to take Zuko away from this ghastly place, and to bring something home for him, something real, something that would mean so much more to the brat than a few kisses and fumblings in a dark sailor’s cabin.

_Think of how he’ll look at you after you do this for him. Don’t fail._

“Ready, Lieutenant? On the count of three. One…”

Jee barely heard the voice at all; his focus was entirely on the raised hand of his opponent, the tilt of the fingers, the swirls of heat in the air around it. _Not hot enough. A feint. He’s going to kick._

“Two…”

The kick came a split second earlier than Jee had expected, but he was fast enough, dropping down to catch the blast on his hands and disperse it with a broad sweep of his arms.

The fire went to either side of him, roaring, and Jee punched forward before he could even see where he was aiming.

He missed.

But only barely, and Zhao immediately got more careful. Jee dodged as the return blow came, breathed in for the next strike, fired and immediately brought his hands together again to parry once more. 

His breath rushed strong and regular, the sound like a rush of water in his head. _In. Out._

It worked. It was going well. The motions of a serious duel were coming back to him already, as if he’d never stopped being twenty, as confident as he was young, as bold as he was strong.

He could do this. He just had to keep up.

Fire rushed over his shoulder as he deflected the next blow a little too sloppily. It stung, but not too alarmingly, and Jee knew better than to glance down to assess the damage. He had to concentrate. He could beat this opponent, but only if he didn’t get sloppy for even a heartbeat.

If he looked away, if he missed a single telling movement, it would be over.

_In. Out. Attack. Withdraw. Your breath is like waves on the beach. It streams in, and then out again to gather fire for the next blow. Nothing can stop it. No fire blast can stop the sea._

Jee’s grandfather had been the one to teach him that trick. His mother had never compared firebending to water in any way or form, and neither had any of Jee’s instructors in the Navy. But his grandfather had been old, old enough to remember the last years of Sozin’s reign, and he’d had some odd ideas about bending training.

 _Your breath is like waves on the beach_ had always helped Jee more than any other breath control method he’d ever learned.

The voice tried to cut through his concentration again.

“I really am impressed you got this far with the prince,” Zhao drawled as he began to circle again. “Or maybe I shouldn’t be. Out of all the toothless grey idiots on that ship of yours, you probably wash the most often.” 

_Concentrate. Breathe._

“It speaks volumes about how little choice he has left that he’d stoop to letting you touch him.”

Jee’s fingers exploded with angry heat as he absorbed the next blast rather than deflect it. He kept it there as he breathed in to throw Zhao’s own fire back at him, made twice as hot with all the fury Jee had in him.

His poor brat.

“How dare you even _speak_ of Prince Zuko,” he hissed as he expelled the flames.

Zhao blocked the attack with maddening ease.

“You act like I harmed your precious princeling. I gave him some harsh words, yes, but they were completely true and he needed to hear them. Let me give you some as well, _Lieutenant_ ,” Zhao snapped as shook the last embers of Jee’s useless volley from his fingers. 

He began to circle once more, at a faster pace now, pausing every now and then to loosen another fireblast. It was the first glimpse Jee had seen today of the angry, volatile captain Zhao he remembered from years ago.

“You were demoted because you let your heart get in the way of your head, and you weren’t fit for the realities of fighting wars. Now you’re a sad failure of a man. Your greatest accomplishment in the last five years has been convincing a friendless child to let you put your hands in his loincloth. I very much doubt you’ll manage anything more remarkable than that during the rest of your life.” 

_Don’t listen. Wait for an opening. Your breath is like waves on the beach._

It was getting hard to focus, though; Zhao’s blasts were just hard enough that dodging or blocking them took real effort, and Jee’s throat was starting to cry for water.

“And your little commander will end up exactly as forgettable as you if he continues to surround himself with such _miserable_ guidance, Lieutenant!” 

Jee breathed, moved, tried to let the words wash over him along with every fire blast he dodged or blocked. There was no way in hell that he’d admit that he couldn’t talk and fight at the same time. Not against this adversary. Anger throbbed behind his eyes, and his tongue itched to give voice to it, but…

_He’s trying to get you to disrupt combat breath. Steady. Steady._

Zhao was good, he was _damn_ good. The man had studied under Jeong-Jeong, and probably eight other firebending masters who wouldn’t have looked twice at Jee except when they needed someone to sweep their floors.

It wasn’t fair. Jee would have had proper teachers if he’d been born in a manor house. He wasn’t less talented than Zhao, and barely less powerful; he just hadn’t gotten the same chances.

This wasn’t fair.

“You’re just like General Iroh, Lieutenant,” Zhao sneered, with more than a hint of impatience. “All ready to condemn the prince to mediocrity because you’re too selfish to let him grow into something better than yourself!”

_That’s not true, that’s not what I’m doing, I just…_

Zhao fired off another blast, and then another while Jee was still dodging the first, and he knew he’d been too slow.

A cry tore itself from Jee’s throat as the fire grazed his side, deep this time, making his skin scream.

Zhao smirked, flexed his fingers, and didn’t take advantage of the moment to strike another finishing blow. He straightened up instead.

“You may surrender at any time. Right now it would take you only a day or two to recover. No need to deprive Prince Zuko of the services of his bed warmer for too long.”

It was a matter of moments to bring his breathing under control again - Jee was well-trained enough to dismiss the pain, bad as it was, crying out for him to stop moving and seek relief. 

He should take a few more moments to gather his fire again while Zhao was busy goading him, he knew that. _Waves on the beach. Don’t fuck this up._

But the temptation to shoot off a wild fireball was too strong.

Zhao tossed it aside with a barking laugh. “No wonder Prince Zuko’s not learning to fight properly. Is this how you train with him? Is this really the best you have?” He hissed, expelling sparks from between his teeth. “Pathetic.”

Jee almost screamed in frustration. 

He wasn’t as good as Zhao because he hadn’t gotten the same chances – but it wasn’t just that. It was also because he wasn’t fucking _trying_ to be better. He’d stopped striving to improve his combat bending years ago, after Ba Sing Se. He’d trained every day, but only just enough to keep a tenuous hold on the same level of skill he’d had six years ago. 

Now he needed to fight for real again, for the first time since back then, and he was older and slower, and it was his own fucking fault…

_Tough. You have to do it anyway. Don’t fail._

If Jee didn’t finish this, Zuko would be standing here in a few hours, face to face with an opponent who was entirely capable of burning away his other eye, terrified and outclassed and alone. It would almost be better if he just surrendered, if he just agreed to Zhao’s deceptive _proposal_.

But he’d never do that now. Zuko would fight.

“Think of Prince Zuko,” Zhao said, as if he’d read Jee’s mind. “Stop holding him back. Surrender. Let him come to me. I’ll teach him well.”

A roar of fury tore itself from Jee’s throat as he kicked a fireball straight at Zhao’s head.

“LIAR! YOU JUST WANT TO FUCK HIM! YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO!”

“What a small mind you have,” Zhao snarled, knocking the flame aside with a well-placed punch. “Have you _looked_ at that child? Have you even paid attention to how he’s changed?!”

All humor was gone from his face now. He looked truly, furiously sincere.

“In five years, that boy will be Fire Lord or he will be dead! Why wouldn’t I want to help him? If he manages to regain Fire Lord Ozai’s favor under my guidance, it would only gain me influence at court. And who’s going to blame me for wanting to bed him in the bargain? _You?_ ”

Jee forced his throat to forget its thirst, made his tired arms tense and gather fire once more, told his legs to stop shaking and sink back into a defensive stance. _Waves on the beach. Waves…_

“You’re disgusting. You’ve been sniffing after him since he wasn’t even of age,” Jee snarled. 

Zhao shrugged. “It’s hardly an uncommon vice, isn’t it? You would know. And at least I’m prepared to give the boy something valuable in return for his attentions.”

Je wanted to howl. He didn’t have the breath for it.

“Prince Zuko doesn’t need to be _compensated_ like a common whore!”

Zhao didn’t look impressed. It was as if he’d managed to gather all disdain in the world to him and paint it across his face.

“Only men who know they have nothing to offer pretend that they don’t owe their _lovers_ anything,” he snarled. “You tell a prince of the blood that he should stick with you and let his life go nowhere, but what are you giving in return? A cock for him to suck on when he’s lonely? He can get that in any port tavern, Lieutenant!”

Jee struggled to breathe. He couldn’t do it.

_This isn’t fair, this isn’t fair, this isn’t me._

He returned the attack. It was a paltry effort, and he knew it before the fire even left his hand. His flames were getting darker, colder, and the thought of how weak he looked made him want to die.

Zhao dodged the attack without even looking at it. He smirked. 

_You can’t win. You’re losing. You’ve lost._

“He doesn’t _want_ you,” Jee heard himself beg, and it was the most pathetic and desperate thing that had ever come out of his mouth, but it was true. It was true and he couldn’t bear to hear it denied.

Zuko had come to him. Zuko had come to _him_. Had confided in _him_.

Was counting on him.

“Oh, go back to where you belong, you scruffy old hog-rat,” Zhao snarled as he took two steps towards Jee and twisted into a lightning-fast spin.

Jee didn’t feel the shock, or the pain, until his back hit the ground.

Bastard – the bastard had _kicked_ him in the chest, right in the chi point. That was never a coincidence, and it wasn’t allowed, all physical hits that were aimed to impair an opponent’s firebending were as illegal in training as they were in full-blown Agni Kai…

Jee opened his mouth – to protest, to scream in frustration, to spit fire at the figure looming over him - but a sharp weight slammed down on his lower arm almost immediately, grinding it into packed earth, and all the breath Jee had left turned into a strangled cry of pain.

The ribbon barely cushioned his skin from the sharp bits of gravel underneath.

_Take your stinking foot off that, it’s not yours, he tried to say, but he didn’t manage to produce more than a croak. His head was swimming, and then there was another point of hard, painful pressure right in the middle of his chest. He couldn’t breathe._

A drop of rain splashed onto Jee’s forehead. Then another on his cheek.

“You’ve turned fat and slow,” the hated voice drawled somewhere far above. A heel was digging into his sternum. It hurt. It fucking _hurt_. “Walk away, Lieutenant. It’s your business if you want a child in your bed to keep your privates warm at night. But there’s any number of homeless brats in the world. Rescue one of those, and leave Prince Zuko free to associate with someone who actually understands his high ambitions.”

Jee felt the foot on his chest heat up, fast, to and beyond the point of pain, but he couldn’t draw breath to repel the fire.

“My physician will be by shortly to make sure you can stagger back to your leaky tub on your own feet. But here’s a reminder for you, in case you’re ever tempted to try this again.” 

Jee saw him grin, an instant before his vision went white. 

“Tell Prince Zuko I’m extending his deadline until sundown. I’m sure he’ll have plenty to think about after he sees you.”

  


* * *

  


Jee wasn’t sure how he was standing upright, let alone setting one foot in front of the other. Whatever they’d poured into him, it was a great deal stronger than the poppy tea they made on the ship. 

It didn’t have quite the same effect, either. He could feel that there was something wrong with his ribs, where Zhao had kicked him, and he could feel the pain of the burn on his chest for sure. But there was a thick layer of… something between his brain and the hurt. He knew it was there, just like he could register the stench of burned flesh, and the sickly sweet smell of the honey poultice that was strapped around his ribcage. 

There was just something keeping him from reacting to it. He had a terrible suspicion that part of him _was_ feeling the pain - was locked up somewhere inside, screaming, as outwards Jee stumbled along without even a muscle twitching in his face. The whole inside of his mouth was numb.

The rain was falling steadily now, thick fat drops splashing onto his head and forming a film of sharp cold over his scalp. It was all that kept him awake.

The edges of his vision were so blurry they might as well not be there, and the water made it worse, but he had enough clarity left in the middle to see where he was going. He plodded his way through the narrow lanes between the tents, roughly in the direction of where the camp ended and the docks began.

If he could find the docks, he could find the ship.

He couldn’t think about what he was going to do once he got there. Who he might meet, who might see him, what he’d say…

No. Better to focus on tangible things – holding on to the bits and bobs of his armor that the physician’s assistant had pushed into his arms on his way out of the medical tent. The cold rain slowly soaking into his clothes. The pressure of Zuko’s red hair ribbon, still wound tightly around Jee’s wrist.

And the terrible, wonderfully distracting throb of the burn on his chest. He hadn’t actually seen the wound, not properly. He didn’t want to. It hurt like fuck.

The ache in his wrist was almost painless in comparison. Jee hadn’t bothered to point that one out to Zhao’s physician. He could move the hand, so it was a sprain at the very worst. 

And maybe it was the drugs, but all he could worry about when he looked at it were the smudges of dirt on the ribbon.

The longer he made his way through the endless rows of red tents, the more the smudges bothered him. He couldn’t manage to focus on anything else; even the pain receded into the distance, effortlessly overwhelmed by the tight pressure of silk ribbon around his arm. 

The soldiers and craftsmen in the tents around him were no more than busily swarming colors as Jee trudged through the camp. They bumped into him occasionally, or rather, he bumped into them. But they seemed too busy to do more than cuss at him before they were on their way again.

The rain was picking up, and that just made it worse, because now all he could think of was water to wash the ribbon with before he found Zuko again. The brat would be furious. Not just had Jee stolen what was no doubt one of few ribbons he had, he’d also gone and ruined it. Zuko would be screaming abuse in Jee’s face even before he found out that Jee had let himself get beaten in a duel he’d instigated in Zuko's name.

He didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t bear the thought of hearing it. But what could he do? He had nowhere to run. He had to go back. 

Jee had no idea how to fix his larger mistakes, so he tried to make his throbbing head focus on the smaller one. He’d ruined the ribbon - but he could fix a ribbon. Wash it. Mend it. Give it back. 

It made no sense and it would make nothing better, he realized that from something of a strange distance, but then he almost kicked over a small ton of water in his relentless forward shuffle and he was lost. He dropped his armor on the wet ground.

It hurt his ribcage to kneel, and it hurt his wrist to take the ribbon off with trembling fingers, but at least he could wash _something_ now. He let the cloth slip into the water. The red silk remained suspended at the surface for long moments, but then it began to sink, and Jee quickly plunged his hands into the ton to make sure the ribbon stayed just under the surface. 

He would let it soak for a bit, and then he could rub the fabric together. Hopefully that would take the stains out. He had no soap, and he’d never had to clean silk anyway. He didn’t know how to do it properly.

Zhao was right. He was useless to Zuko. What had he _done_.

If only he’d stayed out of this. If only he’d just gone to the General. He’d made it all so much worse.

It was so hard to focus. Everything ached, and his head felt thick with the herbs Zhao’s medic had given him to get him on his feet and on his way.

The water in the ton was cold, chilling his fingers, but he didn’t want to let the ribbon sink and he couldn’t -

“Lieutenant!”

Jee blinked. When had he closed his eyes?

The red silk was still floating in his hands, but it looked so much darker than before. Jee briefly, stupidly wondered if he’d happened upon a ton of dye instead of a ton of water, before he looked closer and realized that the ton, the earth, and his hands - _everything_ \- was darker. 

The sky overhead had turned from grey to blackish, and rain was pouring down. The people walking between the tents were carrying covered lamps. 

The back of his shirt was completely soaked. He could feel drop after drop pelting down on the skin of his head.

How had he not noticed the rain? How much time had passed? His fingers were so cold he almost couldn’t move them.

“Lieutenant, what are you _doing_? Look at me,” the voice hissed. It sounded very much out of patience.

Startled, Jee looked up. 

It was Zuko. Almost definitely. There was no mistaking that voice or that face, but the clothes weren’t right. He was wearing the knee-length ceremonial uniform pants from before, but also a dark gray tunic that Jee had never seen before. It had a hood, and Zuko had pulled it up so far that it left most of his face in the shadow. 

Why was he wearing a _hood_? He looked like an assassin. There was even something sticking up behind his shoulder that looked like the grip of a blade.

“Sir,” he mumbled. It took him a moment to find the words he wanted to say. “Why aren’t you in uniform?”

Zuko frowned, as if he thought that question was totally inappropriate or at least wildly beside the point.

“Because I was in a hurry, and I didn’t want to deal with everyone in camp recognizing me.” He glowered as he looked Jee up and down. Then he glanced at the bucket and blinked. 

“Explain yourself, Lieutenant! Why did you lock me up! What are you doing here?!” He pointed at the bucket. “And is that my _ribbon_ , what are you doing with my ribbon?”

Zuko scowled ferociously. He peered at Jee’s face, narrowing his eyes.

“ _Lieutenant!_ Look at me! What did you do!?” 

Jee tried to shake his head. He wasn’t sure if it worked.

The disgrace of his loss was still there, throbbing under the layers of pain and drugs, but it seemed faint through his fatigue. It should be easier to talk about now. Better get it out before he could think about it more. 

But shame bound his tongue as surely as if it had been cut out.

Next to him, the swirl of Zuko’s fire was speeding up, flaring in anger and confusion. If he hadn’t been so flummoxed by the scene in front of him, he would already have been shouting, Jee was sure of it.

Jee fumbled inside his tunic with a hand that felt utterly frozen, and extracted Zuko’s armbands. He’d been keeping them against his belly, but they barely felt warm at all.

Zuko’s hand immediately moved into Jee’s narrow, fuzzy field of vision to take the golden rings.

“I didn’t notice these were gone! Did you _take_ …” 

Something shifted in the roiling chi. It went quiet and still. 

“…Wait. Did you challenge Zhao yourself?”

Jee closed his eyes. Perhaps if he pretended he was speaking to someone he didn’t know… Or perhaps if he spoke to Zuko’s knees rather than up at his face. 

He could only nod, eyes on the white skin of Zuko’s calves, and the darker spatters of mud on them. The soggy red ribbon he was still holding in his icy hands felt much heavier than any thin strip of fabric had a right to be.

He was so tired. But Zuko wasn’t saying anything, and the silence was unbearable.

“I… challenged him to an Agni Kai, sir, for our supplies and plating. But he refused. He did agree to a training bout.” 

He spoke to Zuko’s scuffed black slippers. These were new, too – or rather, Jee couldn’t recall seeing them around before. They fit perfectly, following the lines of Zuko’s feet like they’d been painted onto his skin, and they looked well-worn and comfortable. 

There was a faint sound of crunching mud, and then Zuko’s warm breath was almost right next to Jee’s face. 

Jee squeezed his eyes shut. He had to stomp on the urge to cover his bruised face with his hands. He didn’t want anyone to look at him ever again, and certainly not Zuko.

“You lost.” It was a flat, emotionless statement. 

“Yes, sir,” he whispered. This was the moment for a more formal apology. For shaming his commander, for acting without authorization, for disappointing… 

He could put his forehead down on those beautiful feet, hold Zuko’s ankles, and beg for forgiveness.

“Are you hurt?”

Jee’s thoughts stuttered somewhere between wanting to reach for Zuko’s legs and trying to process the question he’d been asked. 

“…Bruised ribs, sir. A burn on the chest. Superficial.” 

It would scar, and showering was going to be a painful chore, but Jee was fairly confident that he’d manage to hide what happened from the crew. If he returned to the ship in this state, they’d probably assume he’d gotten caught up in a bar brawl in the camp that had gone very embarrassingly wrong. So long as he put his clothes on properly, that was. Nobody would guess that he’d challenged Zhao to anything.

Jee had barely realized he was sidetracking himself again when hands suddenly appeared in his field of vision and unceremoniously jerked his tunic open, exposing the bandages and the poultice they were holding in place.

The smell of honey and burned flesh filled Jee’s nostrils again. It was vomit-inducing, but he hadn’t had much to eat, and he thought he remembered throwing up in the medical tent earlier. 

“How _dare_ he,” Zuko hissed, voice so thick with anger that Jee looked up in shock. 

The brat was close, very close, and he looked absolutely furious.

“Sir?”

“He will pay for this,” Zuko snarled as he let go of Jee’s shirt. “I’ll go over there right now and… and…”

A jolt of horror gave Jee the strength to look Zuko in the eyes.

“No, sir, don’t!”

“I’ll do as I please!” Zuko made an inarticulate sound of frustration. “How did this _happen?_ Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do!?” 

Because Zuko wouldn’t have let him go. Because Jee had wanted to return to the ship triumphant, and give the brat good news, and see his face. 

Jee dropped his eyes to Zuko’s feet again. He was so pathetic.

“I didn’t want to get your hopes up, sir.” 

Silence.

“…I apologize for acting out of turn, sir. I… Please allow me to beg your forgiveness.”

Zuko’s shins were as white as bone, but the tops of his feet were glowing pink. He was bending to keep his extremities warm.

Good idea. That was a good idea. Jee breathed in, tried to find his fire, control it properly…

_Your breath is like waves on a beach…_

He coughed, hard, pulling at the burned skin on his chest. It hurt.

Something brushed against his shoulder, a soft pressure that was there and then gone again, as if Zuko had almost tried to steady him.

“This is ridiculous,” Zuko said. He didn’t sound angry anymore. Just confused, and tired, like Jee felt. “Look at the state of you. Do you need a medic?”

The brat pitied him. _Pitied._

“Zhao’s physician looked at it, sir. It’s fine for now. Just needs a new bandage in a few hours.” _Please stop staring._

“Look at me,” Zuko said, rather sharply. 

Jee obeyed without thinking, peered up at Zuko’s face, hidden almost entirely in the shadow of the hood. 

“Your eyes look funny, Lieutenant,” he accused.

“…It’s just the poppy tea, sir. It’ll pass.”

Abruptly, Jee’s vision went dark. Then there was pressure on his forehead, warm and firm.

Just when it dawned on him that Zuko was _touching_ him, the hand disappeared. He could hear Zuko mutter something unintelligible before he straightened up again, resuming the stern cross-armed pose.

“You don’t feel like you have a fever.” An explosive sigh. “Fine, I’ll get you back to the ship first. Get up. Can you walk or do I have to call the crew to carry you?”

The idea of his men seeing him in this state –of them having to _carry_ him– made Jee want to turn around and beg Zhao for a swift execution. It was bad enough that Zuko had to witness this. Worse. The only reason he wasn’t combusting from sheer shame was that he was too tired to summon any flame.

“That won’t be necessary, sir. It’s just the getting up.” The throbbing in his chest was… bad. “Sir, could I borrow your arm for a moment?”

“Oh. Right.” 

Before Jee had opened his eyes again to see where Zuko was, exactly, hands appeared to support his elbows. 

“Come on, get up.”

Jee struggled to his feet as Zuko helped him lift himself.

“Wait, your armor’s everywhere.” Zuko began to circle Jee, picking bits of plate and arm guards out of the mud and shaking them off. Jee flexed his cold fingers around the ribbon, preparing to take the little pile, but Zuko just stuffed it all under his arm. “Couldn’t they give you anything to carry this crap in… Fine, let’s move.” 

Jee’s legs were shaking and prickling. He must have been kneeling for… too long.

“May I lean on your shoulder, sir?”

Another sigh.

“Yes, yes.”

As soon as Jee had put a dirty hand on his shoulder, Zuko began to walk. He was making an actual effort to go slowly, Jee could tell; the pace he set was more like General Iroh meandering through a market, not Prince Zuko’s usual rapid and aggressive clip. 

If they looked like an odd pair, no one spoke to them. There were people about, here and there, but the camp mostly had an uncharacteristic silence about it. Everyone was probably working inside, sheltered from the rain. Jee heard soft voices, and some clanging here and there, and whuffling animals, and tent poles creaking in the wind. And rain.

Jee tried to shield his eyes from the wetness with his free hand. It didn’t seem to make much of a difference. His face was still wet and cold.

“Sir, I’m so sorry,” he blurted.

Zuko glanced up at Jee. Before Jee managed to focus on his face, though, Zuko looked forward again so that the hood covered everything but his nose and mouth.

“What for?”

Jee’s eyes hurt. His tongue was still numb from the medicine, and it tasted bad.

“For disappointing you, sir.”

There was no reply. The hard rush of the rain seemed to grow louder to fill the silence.

“We’ll talk later. Just walk.”

Jee covered his face with his hand again, unmindful of the fact that his fingers were covered in dirt and he was probably smearing it all over himself.

The brat didn’t sound like he’d just experienced a painful let-down. He looked like he’d simply had his low expectations confirmed.

Of course. There would be nothing surprising about Jee taking a gamble and failing spectacularly. He shouldn’t even have tried. He wasn’t cut out for this. He was nothing special at best, and an embarrassment at worst, and now Zuko knew it beyond any and all doubt. 

Jee tightened his fingers on either side of his brows until the pressure was downright painful. Easier to concentrate on that small hurt than to think about the conclusions Zuko was undoubtedly drawing right now, or about the things Jee might have lost himself today

Jee didn’t see most of the journey back, busy as he was concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. At least he didn’t have to struggle to focus his eyes anymore. So long as he kept his grip on Zuko’s shoulder, he could let himself be guided along the muddy paths.

The cold rain didn’t let up, but Zuko felt warm. So warm. The blissful heat of him seeped into Jee’s fingers, and it seemed to crawl up his arm and into his chest from there. 

Jee tried to bend again, trying to hitch his struggling fire to the gentle thrum of Zuko’s healthy flame. It helped to have the rhythm set for him. And the other’s chi tugged at Jee’s as it passed through his fingers, pulling it along, helping it circulate again.

A little noise of relief made its way past Jee’s lips. Zuko glanced back, then quickly away.

The tugging increased. So did the temperature of the shoulder Jee’s fingers were clutching, until steam became visible in the air in front of Jee, rising up from Zuko’s smaller form as if he was an angry little tea kettle.

It was probably just Jee’s imagination, but it almost felt like Zuko was doing it on purpose. It helped for sure. Jee almost felt warm again by the time they made it to the ship.

By some undeserved miracle, they didn’t meet anyone on the way up the command tower. Or maybe they did meet people, but Zuko shooed them away before they could try talking. Jee was trying very hard to see nothing but his own feet, so he might have missed a lot that happened around him.

“Open this,” Zuko said.

Jee looked up. He was standing in front of his own cabin.

The door was still soldered closed.

Zuko had been alone when he came looking for Jee. He must have gotten himself out of Jee’s cabin without alerting anyone… But how…?

“Open it before someone notices and we have to explain this mess,” Zuko hissed. He sounded very harassed, and the warmth of him was turning nervous rather than comforting.

Jee’s hands rose to the door of their own volition. Could he melt the soldered bits again? He’d have to do it, if he didn’t do it they’d have to call in someone else…

Next to him, Zuko was definitely fidgeting now.

“Come on, open it, Uncle could walk by any moment!”

Zuko needed him to do this. He needed Jee to do this right.

Somehow, from somewhere so deep in his stomach that it felt like he’d never touched it before, Jee summoned the concentration to melt the metal again.

The moment it glowed hot red, Zuko pushed, and the door swung open with a too-loud creak. The edges of it looked as ragged as torn cloth, and Jee wondered if he could fix that. Before he could reach out to try, though, Zuko pushed him into the cabin and slammed the door closed behind them.

A wave of cold air hit Jee in the face.

“Sir, how did you get out of here?” he heard himself ask even as he stared up at the answer.

“Through the window. Go sit down.”

Jee stared at window. The overcast sky stared back at him. A few raindrops blew in his face.

There were a few red shards on the bed, but not many. Most of the glass had probably fallen outside, on the roof of the galley.

“But the window doesn’t open,” he said stupidly.

“I made it open,” Zuko sneered. The corners of his mouth were pointing upwards, but there wasn’t a shred of cheer in the expression.

Jee looked around. His chair was lying in a corner, two legs broken off halfway. Zuko must have used it to break the glass. That would have taken an amazing amount of anger, Jee mused to himself. The window panes were very thick.

“…But the rain,” he complained. “I’ll be cold.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you locked me up!” Zuko snapped. His face was getting a little red. “We’ll put some canvas over it. Now sit down before you fall over.”

Jee lowered himself on his bunk, carefully, trying and mostly failing not to jostle the wound on his chest or his bruised ribs. He was about to lean back when Zuko swooped in with an aggravated noise, and pulled a few shards of glass away from him.

The air was so cold in here, and the heat from his earlier bending was fading fast. He was tired. He wanted some paint stripper.

A bottle appeared in front of his face, in Zuko’s hand.

Jee stared at it and wondered if sometime in the past few minutes he’d asked for a drink without hearing himself. He was almost sure he hadn’t said a word.

“Sir,” Jee nodded gratefully. He swigged the bottle to get as much of the stuff in his body before his taste buds noticed what was happening.

It burned on the way down, and not in a good way, but Jee would take any comfort right now. He coughed. That made the wound pull tight, and he bit back a hiss of pain.

Zuko was still standing in front of Jee. He wasn’t looking quite as angry anymore. 

“I’ll… go get someone. To cover that window?”

Jee blinked at the hesitant tone. His eyes were tearing up a little and Zuko was becoming a grey-and-white blur, with fire that jumped about anxiously instead of burning in banked fury at Zhao, Jee, and the world.

“…Get the first mate for that, sir. He can fix the door and the window, and make it look like…”

An accident? How in seven hells was he going to explain this to the rest of the crew?

“…A big bird crashed into the window?” Zuko ventured. He sounded almost contrite.

Jee stared at him. That was amazingly dumb. Later, when it didn’t hurt his chest to even breathe, he was going to think back on this and laugh for half an hour.

“And how did I get burned, then?”

Zuko looked downright sheepish now.

“You… you were holding a lamp when the bird came crashing in, and you spilled some oil on your…” 

He trailed off and stared at Jee’s chest.

“The bandage got wet,” Zuko said after a very long time. “You need to change it.”

He was right, no matter how hard and immediately Jee’s mind rebelled against the thought of messing with anything that was anywhere near the burn. It already hurt like blazes, and it would get worse as the poppy and alcohol wore off, too.

“…I know how to do that,” Zuko said as he reached out.

Jee felt fingertips spreading on the sore skin just under the wrappings. The touch was strange -- very light, but with a tremble in it that spoke of distress rather than tenderness. 

Then Zuko seemed to rethink his strategy. He grabbed Jee’s hand and tugged it up.

“Here, you hold that poultice in place, I’ll undo the wrappings.”

A sudden wave of irritation made Jee try to shake off the hold on his fingers. 

“I can do it, stop that!” _Stop staring at me while I look like your rhino shat me out. Give a man some space._

Abruptly, Zuko let go. Jee smacked himself in the chest.

“AGH!”

Oh holy hell, that hurt. He couldn’t even think of how much. He couldn’t even _see_ , it hurt so much.

Jee gasped, struggled to breathe through the pain, tried to wipe his eyes. His fingers came away wet and trembling. 

_Spirits._

Zuko’s form hovered somewhere to his left, frozen and still.

“Don’t touch me.” Jee said the words in his head, but he wasn’t entirely sure they actually came out. He paused to take in some air and tried again. “Don’t.”

Zuko certainly didn’t look like he was planning to. He was clutching his hands against his stomach, as if he was afraid his fingers might do something wrong if he let them move freely.

He was shaking worse than Jee. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

Jee shook his head.

“It’s not so bad, just don’t touch,” he whispered, even though it was that bad. It felt like there was lava on his chest. He needed more drink. 

A few gulps of liquid courage later, Jee felt fortified enough to touch his own skin again. It took him at least a minute to locate the edge of the bandage, tucked away under his left side, and then an agonizing eternity to unwind the long strip of cotton. It smelled of rain and flesh.

He tried to focus on the sound of air whistling between his teeth, and on not making any sounds except for that. He didn’t want to whine and groan with Zuko right there. Zuko had seen and heard enough today.

Zuko stood next to the bunk in total silence for the whole laborious process. He didn’t twitch a muscle. Jee didn’t even see him blink.

He did suck in a loud breath when Jee drew the poultice away from his chest. 

_Oh, seven hells, it looks terrible. He thinks it looks terrible._

It hurt Jee’s neck to peer down at himself, but he tried. It was the first good look he’d gotten at the burn while he wasn’t distracted by Zhao and the fucking hellish pain.

The angry red wound was almost exactly in the center of his chest, curving up from just below his sternum to his collarbone. It did look terrible. It looked exactly like someone had deliberately burned their footprint into his skin. He could even make out five separate toes.

He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life seeing this every time he looked down at himself. He didn’t want Zuko to see this every time Jee took him to bed.

If the brat would ever stoop to that again. If he believed Jee was an honorless nobody before, Sozin’s ghost only knew what he thought _now_.

“That’s going to _scar_ ,” Zuko said in a horrified whisper, as if he’d only just realized this.

 _No kidding_. Jee bit his tongue, and prayed that at least the skin would warp as it healed. With any luck, it wouldn’t look anything like a foot in the end. 

He started wondering how he was going to bend forward and grope for the bottle on the floor, then remembered that he’d never put it down there. It was next to him on the bed, and it hadn’t fallen over while Jee was struggling with his bandages. Good. He took a long swig of it.

The fire hovering to his left felt cold, and getting colder. It felt wretchedly unhappy.

Jee reached out blindly, found Zuko’s hand, and patted it.

“It’s… fine, sir. Could have been worse.” He had to take a moment to cough. 

Zuko’s skin blazed so hot so fast that Jee withdrew his hand in shock. 

“I will go out there and _kill_ him,” Zuko snarled.

Fucking _brat_.

Jee almost threw the bottle against the wall. All that stopped him was the knowledge that he had no more in this cabin, and if he destroyed it, he’d be without drink until he could persuade someone to bring him more.

“ _How_? How are you going to do that? You’ll get killed, or hurt, and we’ll still have nothing!”

Zuko jumped – actually jumped – back. He stared at Jee in wide-eyed silence.

A rote apology leapt into Jee’s head, but he stomped down on it. Maybe he was a useless old failure, but he was going to keep that stupid child from going out there if he had to bring all the demons of the underworld to do it.

“Sir,” he managed. “If you go out there and make this even worse, after all we went through, I… I’ll…”

“You’ll do nothing,” Zuko said. His fire was still blazing hot. “Stay here and heal. I will _not_ let this go unpunished! I will not!”

“Sir, _how_?” Easy, easy. No shouting. Be reasonable. “Sir… Stop this. Stop. I don’t want revenge. I mean I do, but we can’t get it. There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing I can do. We’re not good enough. I want us to cut our losses and leave here. Sometimes we can’t get what we want, sir.”

Zuko held out his hands, indicating Jee’s burned chest, the muddied bits of armor he’d dropped on the floor, and everything about Jee in general.

“Then why did you even go out there? Why did you _do_ this?”

“Because I’m stupid,” Jee snarled.

Zuko’s face twisted in confusion, and Jee forced himself to take a deep breath.

_He’s only a boy._

He leaned forward and tried for a conciliatory tone. “I went out there because Zhao treated you dishonorably, sir.” He pointed at Zuko, but misjudged the distance and accidentally poked him in the chest. “And because you’re too young for this. You would have lost that Agni Kai, you know you would have lost, and I will _not_ let you walk into one after all.”

Not that he had any actual authority over the brat. But he sure as hell could punch Zuko in the face and knock him unconscious long enough to go talk to the General and persuade him to steer the ship away from this cursed port. Zuko could kill him later. 

“You lost your duel too,” Zuko muttered after a very long moment. 

Jee closed his eyes. Like he needed the reminder.

“Yes, sir, I did say I’m stupid.”

Zuko opened his mouth, then waved his hands through the air, as if he was struggling to put his thoughts into words.

“He _burned_ you!” he finally exclaimed.

“Better me than you again, sir.” 

Zuko snapped his mouth shut. Silence yawned wide between them.

Fire was still thrumming inside Zuko, as if he was full to bursting with it and needed to go out and kill something. Jee understood the feeling. It was noble and useless, and not at all what they needed right now.

They were done. The sooner Zuko lowered his expectations of Jee, and of himself, and of life in general, the sooner they might find some peace.

“Let it go,” Jee pleased, squeezing Zuko’s fingers. “Zhao is bad for you. Please, sir, whatever you do, promise me that you won’t go back to him. Don’t try to make a deal with him. Don't try to fight him. It won’t end well, it just won’t. Let us go away from here.” 

A gust of wind brought in another rush of cold air, along with a smattering of raindrops. A few of them hit Zuko in the face. He blinked, then reached up to rub the wetness from his cheeks.

He looked up at Jee and took a deep breath.

“What can we do now?”

He sounded like he still thought Jee might have something up his sleeve after all. Child. 

“Maybe there’s nothing you can do, sir,” Jee sighed. “Try talking to your uncle? He needs to know we’re in trouble. And he might have some ideas.”

Jee wasn’t too hopeful about that, but it wouldn’t hurt to give Zuko something to grasp at, he supposed.

The haze of alcohol was really weighing on his eyelids now. Zuko’s form next to the bed was starting to shimmer at the edges, as if he was a spirit conjured into being only by Jee’s own mind.

Jee took another swig of the bottle as he watched, half hoping that Zuko would disappear and take his pale, sad face with him.

“Is that what you want from me, Lieutenant?”

He looked so downcast that Jee almost wanted to swallow everything he’d just said. He patted Zuko’s fingers instead.

“Yes, sir. That is what I want. Please.”

Zuko’s eyes fell to where his fingers rested on the bed, almost hidden under Jee’s larger hand. They were unmoving, as pale and still as a dead thing. His fire was still and quiet now.

“All right. I swear it. No Zhao,” he whispered. Then, “I’ll go talk to Uncle now.”

Jee blinked.

“You will?”

Zuko nodded. He didn’t look even a smidgen angry anymore. He looked exactly as beaten as Jee felt. 

"I… was irresponsible. This was all a mistake.”

There was a film of wetness over his eyes, and he had them fixed on the burn on Jee’s chest. 

Jee squeezed the fingers under his, but Zuko pulled away and stood up. He secured his hair in the collar of his dark tunic, then pulled the hood up again, as if he was preparing to sneak through his own ship undetected.

A brief shudder tried to spread through Jee’s body at the thought that General Iroh would know about how badly he’d fucked up, how tragically he’d failed to protect the man’s nephew from anything. How much worse he’d made things. He was too tired to really let that thought sink in for now, but that would no doubt change in short order.

“…Sir? Will you tell your uncle about everything that happened with Zhao?”

Zuko looked down at him. 

“Do I have to?” 

Jee shook his head.

"No, sir. Just about the money thing. If your uncle has a solution for that, maybe there won’t be any need to talk about Zhao." Jee sure as hell didn’t want the General to hear about anything related to Zhao. And it looked like Zuko would rather eat his own fingers than give his uncle an itemized list of all the different ways he’d fucked up today.

“Right,” Zuko said. He seemed to rally a bit. “If… Suppose uncle says he doesn't have a way to get money. Suppose we have to abandon the ship. Will it be good… will the crew be all right if we leave you in charge of bringing the ship back to the Fire Nation?” He swallowed. “With your wages, of course. Would that be the right thing to do?”

Ah. Jee nodded.

“Yes, sir, they’d be all right. I’d guess about half would like to return to the home islands. The rest would probably prefer to be left in the colonies.”

Zuko nodded back. Then he tilted his head.

“…Would _you_ go home? To the Fire Nation?”

Poor brat. Jee liked the Fire Nation well enough, of course, but not enough to speak of it with so much… love. _Home._ Zuko wanted it so badly, and it was the one thing he couldn’t have. 

Would he go back, if Zuko had to give up his ship? The Earth Kingdom colonies weren’t much, but it wasn’t like Jee had anything waiting for him back… home. He’d probably go back to languishing in some rat-roach-infested boarding house in the royal harbor, waiting for a new commission that would never come. And the idea of steaming away towards the fire archipelago while Zuko and the General stood behind them on the shore, unable to come with…

There was no more work in the Fire Nation than over here. At least in the colonies, they always needed people with a strong pair of arms to build and guard and plant. Surely Jee could find something that’d pay him enough to survive. Or maybe, if Zuko got enough gold for his scrolls somewhere, he’d even want to keep Jee on for a time while he searched for the avatar on foot. That wouldn’t be so bad either.

Not bad at all. The idea rather made Jee want to smile, actually. Even more so when he realized that he might have hit on something nice he could say to Zuko. He wanted to say something nice, anything, because Zuko was going to walk out of here and have a conversation with the General that he dreaded so much that he’d done everything to avoid it for months. That was going to be hard. Jee didn’t want the brat to walk out of here without a single kind thought to hold on to. 

He reached for Zuko’s hand again.

“I won’t return to the Fire Nation without you, sir.”

Zuko returned the grip of Jee’s fingers, for a moment only, as if in pure reflex.

“Really?”

“Of course, sir.”

It was a surprisingly easy promise to make. Jee just didn’t want to be back in the Fire Nation. He wanted to be right here.

Zuko stared at him.

“It may be years before we can return. Finding the Avatar will take much longer if we can’t travel by sea.”

Jee made an effort to smile. 

“I don’t mind that, sir. Go to your uncle,” he urged. “We’ll talk again later.” 

Perhaps the General had some help to offer after all. And even if he didn’t, Zuko’s heart would be a little lighter for having confessed.

“All right,” Zuko sighed. 

He looked wan and tired, even through the blurry curtain that the paint stripper had drawn over Jee’s eyes. _He hasn’t had a proper meal since yesterday._

“You should go down to the galley first, sir. Get something to eat. It’ll make you feel better.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Fire flakes,” Jee heard himself murmur. “You like treats.”

Zuko scoffed. 

“Are you drunk?”

“Less pain when you’re drunk, sir. You should try it sometime.” Oh no, that was a bad thing to say. He should probably take it back, before Zuko decided to become an alcoholic and the General came to take Jee’s balls off.

Zuko deserved better than this. Jee was stupid and Zhao was evil, and the General was paying so little attention these days that he hadn’t even noticed that his precious nephew was getting pawed at by someone over twice his age. And none of them were helping Zuko go home.

Jee rubbed the warm, strong fingers in his own with his thumb.

“I wish I could give you what you want, sir,” he whispered.

There was a small pause. Jee could almost see Zuko’s nose wrinkle. “You’re so drunk.”

Well, yes. “True, sir.” His fingers brushed over Zuko’s knuckles. He really wanted to kiss there. So smooth and soft and young.

“You deserve better than this, sir,” he murmured. “I wish I was a better lieutenant for you.”

Zuko blinked.

“I… what?”

It was a bit of an effort to look Zuko straight in the eyes now, because there was something bright in there that was strange, and very hard to focus on. Jee managed, though. It felt important. If he couldn’t give Zuko anything real, at least he could convey that he did want to.

“I really wish I could give you what you want, sir.” He ran his thumbs along the deep lines in Zuko’s palm. “I wish that.”

“I know,” Zuko whispered. “It’s okay.”

Jee let go of Zuko’s hand and gave it what he hoped was an encouraging little pat.

This wasn’t so bad, for him. It was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? Or something close enough. Zuko wasn’t angry at him anymore. He probably no longer thought that Jee was only here because he wanted sex out of it. He understood that Jee had fought for him, even if it had been a useless, pathetic attempt. But…

Jee frowned. He should take his own advice and stop expecting that someone would find a way to turn this situation around.

“Sir… Can you go fetch the first mate now? I need a new bandage. And help with my window.”

Zuko gave a very tiny nod of his head. Before Jee could think of something else to say, Zuko stood up, lowered the brightness of the lamp with a breath, and left the room. 

The door didn’t make a sound as he pulled it closed behind him, not the slightest rasp of metal against metal.

Jee didn’t make an effort to look less miserable than he felt when, only a few minutes later, he heard Haisu’s uneven tread coming up the ladder outside. 

“Heng, what did you do to your door? The prince came and told me to come up here and… Spirits.”

Jee didn’t bother to open his eyes. He tapped the bottle against the side of his bunk in greeting.

“Don’t ask. Please.”

  


* * *

  


When Jee woke up, the rain was gone, as was the darkness. His cabin was filled with soft lamp light, warmer and steadier than the agitated fire Zuko had lit before – he could see it even through his eyelids. He could swear he smelled tea.

He blinked up at his window. It was still gone, or rather, covered by a few thick layers of sail cloth and old blankets. Right. Haisu had done that. He’d promised to go scour the hold for a spare window pane, hopefully of the right size.

Everything still hurt, especially his chest. That put to rest any hopes that he hadn’t done what he remembered doing.

_Fool._

What time was it? Late afternoon at the very least, judging by the faraway tingling of the sun in his veins. He had to get up. Find out what happened in the hours he’d been out…

Jee squeezed his eyes shut again, tried to sit up, and bit back a groan when the burn flashed with hot agony.

A warm hand pushed down on his shoulder immediately.

“Lieutenant,” the General’s voice rumbled. “Good evening. My apologies, I was lost in thought and didn’t notice you were awake.”

“Sir,” Jee managed.

The General’s old face appeared over him.

“How do you feel? Should we call a physician from the camp?” 

Jee took a moment to consider that. He let a hand drift along his bruised ribs, then – very carefully – along the bandage over his chest. It was thin and perfectly tight. Haisu was no medic, but all firebenders got competent at treating burns over the years.

It still hurt like fuck and he still wanted more drink, but Zuko had left before Jee could ask him to bring another bottle, and Haisu had refused to oblige Jee like the terrible friend he was. 

“I’ll be all right, sir.” Jee tried moving. That hurt like fuck, too. “Sir, could I trouble you to help me up?”

The General shook his head. “You remind me of my nephew. After he was burned, he insisted on walking on his own two feet as soon as he woke up. He couldn’t see two steps in front of him.”

Jee took in a deep, hissing breath, letting his fire probe at the edges of the burn. That also hurt, but in a slightly better way.

“This wound isn’t nearly as deep, sir. The first mate took good care of it. It’ll heal fine.”

“I will trust that you are at least better than Prince Zuko at giving accurate assessments of your injuries,” the General said as he gave Jee’s back a gentle but firm push. “But take a few days off to rest, at least. There’s no need for you to push yourself.” 

Then the General disappeared from view for a moment, and the smell of tea grew stronger. “I have some excellent herbal tea for you, if you can sit up properly…? 

It took Jee a few seconds of biting agony, but he managed to haul himself up on the bed enough to look the old man straight in the eyes. A blissfully hot cup was pushed into his hands. It smelled heavenly, but Jee wasn’t quite able to focus on it.

“Sir… Why are you here? Where is Prince Zuko?”

A brief, sad smile tugged at the General’s mouth.

“I’m here to see if you are well, and to discuss a few urgent matters with you, if you feel up to it. Prince Zuko went down to the hold to take care of his komodo rhino.”

A small pang of alarm stabbed through Jee’s increasingly wakeful mind. Zuko could be halfway across Zhao’s camp if the General hadn’t actually seen him in the last two minutes…

The General seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. “And yes, he actually is down there. I’ve been sending the pikemen down to check up on him at regular intervals. Please have your tea, there is more, and supper as well.”

Jee blinked and took in the rest of his cabin. The General had brought his favorite sitting cushion, and his favorite low tea table, and his favorite reed floor mat. The table held not just a steaming tea pot, but something that looked and smelled very much like a hot plate of fried fish. 

Jee felt his mouth water. It looked far too fancy to be destined for the table of anyone not of royal birth, though. It had to be the General’s supper.

The old man chuckled. He reached for the tray of food and deftly transferred it to Jee’s lap. “Do feel free to tuck in, Lieutenant. Prince Zuko didn’t want it, and I’ve had my share already.”

Jee looked up. “Was Prince Zuko here?”

The General shook his head.

“No, I brought this from my cabin. Prince Zuko left for the hold immediately after our talk, and I expect he’ll remain there for a while. Our discussion was… difficult. Ah, my apologies.” He handed Jee the pair of chopsticks that had been left on the table before. “Eat, Lieutenant. Recover your strength.”

What little he had of that. “Thank you, sir.”

He took a bite of the pinkish fish, expecting the sharp bite of salt, but felt his eyes widen at the soft flavor.

“Sir, where did this come from? It’s excellent.”

The General beamed.

“Sparrow-salmon fresh from the inland lake on Kyoshi island! Scullion Sen and I got it very cheaply from the fishing boats in the harbor. Lovely people on there. We also bought two barrels of pickled Kyoshi vegetables, and this boar-deer throw,” he said as he shook out the white-grey fur over his shoulders. “Very good against the chill of winter. I got Prince Zuko a boar-deer hat and socks as well, and this!” 

He conjured a shirt from somewhere under the table. “My nephew grows out of all his clothes in the blink of an eye these days, his old winter shirts must be useless by now. Look, it may be Earth Kingdom, but it’s grey. He might actually wear it.” 

The General looked like he was miles away, and it was quite a happy location. 

“Perhaps we should stop by Kyoshi Island sometime after all. Prince Zuko has spoken of visiting the place in the past, but I dissuaded him then. The islanders hold Avatar Kyoshi in such high regard that they might not take kindly to an… impolite… Fire Nation prince barging in and demanding that they help him capture the current Avatar.” 

“Sounds wise, sir,” Jee concurred.

He stared at the garment in the General’s hands. It was lined with more fur, but it looked quite thin all the same. It would look good on Zuko.

The poor brat.

“…Sir, is Prince Zuko all right?”

The General sighed and put the shirt back down.

“He’s usually so fond of sparrow-salmon, I thought he’d enjoy the treat… But I understand he had no appetite, given what he came to tell me.”

Jee braced himself. He wasn’t dead yet, so Zuko probably hadn’t given away anything that might make his uncle terribly angry with Jee, but… “Tell you what, sir?”

The General reached into his robe and produced a very expensive-looking roll of paper. Jee knew what it was the moment he clapped eyes on it. He’d been staring at it very hard only yesterday.

“It appears this youthful indiscretion I was suspecting my nephew of was a bit more serious than I thought,” the General mused as he opened the letter from the royal treasurer. He glanced up at Jee. “You have seen this, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir.”

The General sighed again, much louder.

“I should know better than to underestimate how much mayhem someone of that age can cause. Still, this is…”

Jee still wasn’t sure exactly how much Zuko may have told his uncle, so he just nodded. “Sir.”

“Prince Zuko refused to tell me where he’s been getting money for the past few months. Do you know?”

Jee took a deep breath.

“Yes, sir. But I swore not to tell anyone,” he said, bracing himself for something very kind and very disappointed.

The General’s frown sharpened for a moment. Then he seemed to reconsider whatever gently guilt-tripping thing was on the tip of his tongue, though. He merely took another sip of his tea.

“Then you should keep your word. Things will only be worse in the end if you break my nephew’s trust, it is rarely given.” He looked up at Jee’s face. “Is Prince Zuko doing anything dangerous?”

Jee took time to consider that quite carefully.

“Not right at this moment, sir.”

“I’m sure he’ll rectify that by sundown, then,” the General sighed. “Lu Ten was never this much trouble.”

Jee distinctly remembered Prince Lu Ten being a great deal of trouble, but Zuko certainly had his cousin beat for sheer creativity. Prince Lu Ten had been getting up to the usual things, like sneaking off at night to visit the more disreputable tents of the army camp, and getting piss drunk. Fraud and treason and thievery hadn’t really been his sort of thing.

Jee sipped his tea. It was getting a little cool, so he wrapped his hands around the cup to heat it. He ignored the General’s stare boring into his bowed forehead. Better to shut up and let the old man talk, rather than inadvertently reveal something that Zuko might have tried to hide.

“Prince Zuko told me that he tried to broker a deal with Captain Zhao to get us equipped for an expedition to the South Pole, but he failed. He refused to give any details,” the General said, on that too-casual tone that Jee had long learned to be wary of. “Can you tell me what happened? Unless I have grown entirely unable to read my nephew, he was quite upset. More than a simple lost argument with Captain Zhao would warrant.”

Jee gave himself a moment to think. He couldn’t betray both the brat and himself by giving the General an inkling of where things had _really_ started going wrong, but he did want the old man to be aware that Zuko was in trouble and needed watching.

“I was sent away for most of their discussion, sir. I understand Captain Zhao guessed that Prince Zuko was in serious financial difficulties, and tried to… strongarm him into a deal that would have been disadvantageous for the prince.”

The General’s eyes narrowed.

“Zuko refused?”

“He did, sir.” Jee swallowed. “Yesterday.”

The General had clearly heard the “for now” that Jee hadn’t spoken out loud.

“It sounds like you believe we should leave this port soon, Lieutenant.”

Jee nodded. “That would be my recommendation, sir.”

They should definitely cast off before Zhao realized that Zuko was planning to spurn his offer. The ugly rhino ass might decide to take revenge somehow.

“I agree,” the General said simply. He refilled Jee’s cup again. “Now, Lieutenant. The first mate is telling all the men that you were injured in an accident this morning. But Prince Zuko confessed to me that he caused this damage to your window while he was arguing with you. And that you still returned to Captain Zhao to plead his case, but were injured in a… scuffle?”

A scuffle. That was about the most dignified word one could use for what had happened, Jee supposed.

“I challenged Captain Zhao to a duel, sir. I lost.” Jee looked up. “Prince Zuko wasn’t there, sir. He didn’t even know I’d left.”

The General stared back at him.

“I assume you have already told yourself how foolishly you acted, and I see that you have been punished enough.”

Jee lowered his eyes. “Sir.”

The General’s voice became quite a bit warmer. “If it means anything to you, Prince Zuko feels deeply responsible for the injuries you suffered. I’ve rarely seen him so upset.”

When Jee blinked at that, the old man gave him a wan smile. 

“It’s true. He feels like he failed you. All of us.”

Something about the weight of the General’s stare made Jee quite uncomfortable. He wished he could go check up on Zuko. 

“I have no ill feelings towards Prince Zuko for this, sir. I’m responsible for my own actions.” Jee took a deep breath and forged ahead, before he lost his nerve. “Sir, you asked me to look out for your nephew and I failed to do so. And I failed to win my duel. I acted foolishly and without permission. Please forgive me.”

“Yes, that does sound like you,” the General sighed. “I hardly think we should assign blame to any single person here. Zuko neglected to do what was in his own best interests. He should have spoken to me earlier. And I have no doubt you both thought you were doing what was best.”

That was true, Jee supposed. He’d meant well. So had Zuko. They were just stupid and unlucky, both of them. Unlucky and not good enough for what they were trying to do.

His despondency must have shown on his face, because the General’s expression softened into something like compassion. 

“This is far beyond what you could hope to help, or solve, Lieutenant. There was no right thing you could have done. If you had informed me of the situation against Zuko’s wishes, no doubt this would have gone badly in some other way.” He hesitated. “Though I do wish you had found a way to at least let me know that something serious was going on.”

“Yes, sir. Please forgive me.”

“You are forgiven. And I thank you for standing by Zuko. He told me no details of exactly what was said and done yesterday, but I could tell that your support was a great comfort to him.”

 _Not great enough._ Jee inclined his head. He had no idea what to say to that.

The look of deep fatigue on the old man’s face was oddly reminiscent of Zuko’s, even though they looked nothing alike.

“And to think all this could have been avoided if I’d known about the problem sooner.” The General sighed, quite loudly. 

Jee mentally resigned himself to at least a month of regular reminders that he really, really should have found a way to let the old man know that his nephew needed help.

“Yes, sir.”

“Anyway,” the General said. “I will leave you to recover in peace soon, Lieutenant. I simply came to establish that your injuries are not too serious, and to discuss the future of this ship with you. You are captain of our crew, and I would like to hear your opinion on what lies ahead for us.”

Ah. Right. That was reasonable, and Jee was happy to see this conversation veer away from the topics of Zuko, Jee and Zuko, and deeply humiliating recent events.

Jee nodded towards the letter lying in the General’s lap.

“Sir, your letter mentioned that you’re allowed to return to Caldera now. Will you go?”

The General gave the letter a smile that made Jee want to back up a few paces. The paper caught fire.

“I would rather go to Koh’s lair.” Ashes fell from the General’s fingers as he clapped his hands together. “Everything that brings joy to my life is right here. If anyone in Caldera requires my presence, they’re welcome to come and collect me in person.”

Oh. Well. Good.

“Sir, is there any way you can get our full monthly allowance back?”

It was a long shot, Jee knew that, but it was still a painful disappointment when the General shook his head.

“Convince the Fire Lord to change his mind? I don’t believe so. I fear I have little influence over my brother.” His frown sharpened. “And I would rather that Prince Zuko not continue to rely on whatever Caldera deigns to toss our way.”

That was… concerning.

“Sir,” Jee began. “Do you mean you believe our funding really may be taken away entirely? This isn’t some… some temporary thing because the Fire Lord is displeased with Prince Zuko?”

“This is not an expedition that’s essential to the survival of the Fire Nation, Lieutenant. Essential expeditions do not have their funding taken away piecemeal. The Fire Lord is a little more than displeased, and his displeasure has been growing for a long time.”

Jee had no idea what the Fire Lord’s displeasure was like. But he remembered the tremble in Zuko’s voice as he spoke of his adored father, and of all his unanswered letters, and of dying in Agni Kai to… _satisfy_ … the Fire Lord.

“Sir…” He wasn’t sure what to make of this. And he didn’t want to sound like he doubted Lord Ozai, not when he was speaking to the man’s brother. “It seems… harsh. That Prince Zuko should be punished like this for not finding the Avatar. No one else has found the Avatar either.”

The General’s stare turned sharper, more thoughtful, as if he was reevaluating something about Jee.

“Do you believe these… measures…” He shook the last of the ash from his hands. “…were unjust?”

Jee shifted on the seating cushion and tried not to fidget under the scrutiny. There was that thing again, where the General sounded like he just might be suspicious of the new closeness between his nephew and Jee.

“Sir, it just seems strange to me. That they would draw it out like this, instead of just cutting off our allowance right away.”

For a few long moments, the General said nothing. He didn’t stop staring at Jee like he could see the inside of his head, though. 

Then he nodded, as if he’d come to some sort of decision. He moved to fill Jee’s half-empty cup again, without even looking where he was pouring.

“It isn’t strange that the Fire Lord would draw this out, Lieutenant. It’s typical.” He set the tea pot down with a loud clang. “I believe the decision to cut Prince Zuko’s allowance was unjust and undeserved. A few hundred gold per month is nothing to the royal treasury - the Fire Lord’s shoes cost more. And we have not found the Avatar, true, but I hardly think that should be a surprise to anyone. Prince Zuko has given more to this quest than anyone could reasonably have expected of him.”

Jee blinked as he tried to remember if he’d heard General Iroh speak ill of his brother before.

Jee folded both hands around the cup, drawing the heat of it into his fingers with a deep breath. It would leave the liquid almost cold, but he needed a moment to think and make sure he didn’t say anything that would make the General clam up.

“Prince Zuko loves his father very much, sir. He was very upset yesterday at the idea of disappointing him.” He glanced at the General’s wizened face. “And of disappointing you.”

The General looked much older than a few minutes ago, when he’d been showing off the new clothes he’d gotten his nephew.

“Think what you want of Prince Zuko, but you won’t find a more devoted son in any nation on this earth.”

There was something hard and bitter behind the General’s friendly rumble now. If Jee hadn’t known any better, he would have taken it for envy. 

He nodded towards the ashes of the letter instead.

“Sir, do you have any idea of how to solve this… problem?”

The hint of unpleasantness faded from the General’s face, until he looked simply old and dejected.

“Not really, to be honest. I meant to ask your opinion on the practicalities of some of our options – those aren’t my specialty.” He took a long sip of his tea, as if to fortify himself. “Is it truly impossible for us to go on this expedition to the South Pole, Lieutenant?”

Jee shifted into a slightly more comfortable seating position. The ache in his ribs was getting worse. 

“As far as I can see, sir, yes. There’s two problems that we can’t solve. We need expedition gear and supplies that we’d need to spend the winter in polar seas. We should bring at least seven months’ worth of food and fuel, in case we get caught in ice and can’t free ourselves until spring. We may - _may_ have enough money for these things, but we can’t obtain them here in Ishihama because Captain Zhao has forbidden his merchants to supply us. And it’s too late for us to turn back north and find a different port where we can purchase our cargo. Prince Zuko has studied the seasonal ice movements between here and the pole very carefully. If we don’t go south now, there’s a good chance we’ll be caught in pack ice.” 

“Yes…” The General was stroking his beard. “And the other problem is the ice-proof plating? Prince Zuko mentioned something.”

“Yes, sir. We need it to travel the pole safely, but we absolutely can’t afford it, not to mention that Captain Zhao wouldn’t sell it to us even if we had the gold. Prince Zuko is willing to risk another trip south without extra plating, but the crew might mutiny at the suggestion alone.”

The General sighed and took a sip from his tea.

“I agree with your assessment, Lieutenant. And I do understand the men’s reluctance. It truly was a miracle that no lives were lost the last time we set foot on the ice.”

Jee nodded. “We know much more about traveling through the ice now, sir, and I daresay we could manage to avoid the most dangerous areas with some careful navigation. But the risk will still be high. And we don’t have a way to get supplies for the expedition in time to head south before the pack ice closes in – not now that Captain Zhao will most likely refuse to give us anything.” 

He leaned forward. He couldn’t stop until they’d exhausted every last option. He owed Zuko at least that. 

“Sir, do you have any way to get us more money, so we can continue our journey until the ice thaws again next summer…?” More money wouldn’t solve anything in the long term, but Jee would take any straw to grasp at right now.

The answer was all too obvious just from the General’s sad frown.

“No. If I’d known of this back in Nan Seng, I could have found us some extra funds, but I have no friends in these parts. If we go back up the western coast of the Earth Kingdom, I will be able to gather enough to tide us over at least half a year or so. But a year? That is too long. Too much.” The General paused, face clouding over, as if he was reliving a bad memory. “I told Prince Zuko this.”

Ah. That must have been unpleasant.

“Half a year would at least give us time to consider more options, sir.” 

The General nodded. “And convince Prince Zuko to consider the options that have been available to him for years now. He could stop this.”

Jee took a deep breath.

“Sir, Prince Zuko said he was afraid to tell you about his money troubles in part because he thought you would try to make him give up his quest.”

He’d expected the General to look wounded. But the old man only nodded in acknowledgment.

“I know,” the General said. “Prince Zuko wants to search for the Avatar in whatever way he can, and I’m not in a position to stop him. I see that I must accept as much.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I look at him and see a child who boarded this ship with the toes of his new boots stuffed full of cotton so they’d fit. He is so much more perceptive now. And yet still so _stupid_.”

He looked away, as if he thought his face might give away something that Jee shouldn’t see. When he turned back towards Jee’s bunk, he was cradling the tea pot in his hand. It was small, oddly shaped, and of a color that looked suspiciously like Water tribe blue.

“Give me your cup, Lieutenant… Thank you. Now. Prince Zuko assures me that if he loses the ship, he will continue on foot. We discussed the logistics of that option. It sounds like he has some expensive scrolls that he could sell for a fair sum of money. When I run out of places to get funds for the ship, in a few months, he will sell these possessions and buy us a few ostrich horses so we can continue our search for the Avatar on foot.” 

Jee accepted his refilled cup. “On foot, sir? Really?”

“Well, he prefers to buy a small boat and travel to the South Pole as soon as the weather will allow. But I hope to convince him to conserve his funds. It might be best if we can travel to a safe location in the Earth Kingdom where we could… start a new life, if you wish to call it that. Perhaps a Fire Nation colony. Or safer yet, an Earth Kingdom town that’s out of the way enough that no one would recognize Prince Zuko.”

He looked at his tea pot, and then at the grey fur tunic that lay folded next to his knee. “Perhaps Kyoshi Island! It’s quite out of the way, and neutral in the war.”

Judging by the look on his face, the General knew he was describing an unattainable spirit dream, not something that could actually come about in reality.

Jee didn’t know what to think of it. He couldn’t imagine Zuko being gone. Not yet.

“You could take the rhinos if you want, sir,” was all he could venture as a reply. “No need to spend money on ostrich horses.”

“The komodo rhinos are Navy property, Lieutenant, just like the ship itself. Prince Zuko cannot take them with him.”

That wasn’t as much of a problem as the General seemed to think it was.

“We could report to Caldera that Prince Zuko’s rhino died of sickness, sir. Nobody would know if he took it with him.” 

The General brightened a little. “Truly? Prince Zuko will be very relieved to hear of this solution. Thank you, Lieutenant.”

Jee struggled not to cringe under the General’s grateful smile.

“I wish there was more I could do, sir.”

“You have done much already.” The General patted Jee’s knee. “You think kindly of my nephew, I can tell. You showed him patience and goodwill.” 

He paused for a moment. A shadow seemed to come over his face.

“And you placed yourself between him and harm. Few people have ever done that for him.” 

He took up the tea pot and filled Jee’s cup again.

Jee smiled back. He didn’t want more tea – he’d been needing to piss since he woke up, but he couldn’t very well ask General Iroh to come back later because Jee wanted to shuffle off to the latrines.

And go check up on Zuko. Who knew what mischief he was up to.

The General didn’t seem quite as concerned. “I only wish I could do something right now, so Prince Zuko could have his South Pole expedition too. He seems so keen to go.” 

He rubbed his eyes. “Ah. I’m always so glad to see my nephew looking forward to something. But there comes a point where we must focus on keeping all souls on board this vessel safe. Not on Prince Zuko’s unrealistic dreams.”

His voice sounded light, but Jee could hear the strain in it. 

It made him feel ashamed of his failure all over again. He’d forgotten how much he liked the General, and that he owed the man his life. He’d repaid the General’s kindness very poorly indeed.

A knock at the door jolted Jee out of his thoughts. He looked up.

Shi poked his head past the door jamb. He looked very hungover, and he was carrying one end of a large, flat thing wrapped in a blanket.

“General Iroh, sir,” he began. Then he noticed Jee sitting up, and raised his voice a bit. “Oh, hello Captain, sir! Just reporting that Prince Zuko is still in the rhino hold, sir. And we’ve found a window pane that’s the right size, sir.”

The General’s face wrinkled in affection. He moved his low tea table closer to Jee’s bunk to make more room. "Excellent, pikeman. Come in, come in… Is Prince Zuko still sleeping?”

Shi and Haisu filed into the room, maneuvering around the General’s tea party setup with their window pane between them.

"Yes, sir,” Shi confirmed as he straightened from lowering the pane down against the wall. “Gave me a fright for a bit, sir, because he was nowhere to be seen all of a sudden, but he was just in the rhino pen under a paw."

The General fumbled his tea cup, almost dropping it. " _What?_ "

Shi seemed to realize his mistake with uncharacteristic swiftness. He waved both hands in the air.

"Sleeping! Just sleeping, sir! It's fine, sir, really!"

The General seemed to deflate in relief. "Wait. He's sleeping inside the rhino pen?"

"Yes, sir, but that's fine! He's the right size, and he smells like hay."

"I beg your pardon?" The General looked like he had no idea if he should or shouldn't take offense on behalf of his nephew.

"The pikeman means that the beasts think Prince Zuko is a baby rhino, sir," Haisu translated.

"Calf," Shi corrected.

Haisu nodded, but kept talking to the General. "They'll be extremely careful with him, sir. Baby rhinos..."

"Calves," Shi insisted.

Haisu shot him an exasperated look. " _Calves_  are delicate at first, but they still don't get crushed, ever. The beasts are more careful than they look, sir. They take very good care of their young."

"Ah!" the General said, clapping his hands together. His sunny smile was back. "They think he's a baby rhino! An understandable error."

Shi opened his mouth, probably to correct the General's terminology, but he snapped it shut again when Haisu frowned at him. The General ignored the exchange and kept beaming at Shi. "Pikeman, if I understand you correctly, my nephew is not in acute danger of being trampled?"

Shi nodded happily. "The rhinos would never, sir! Sir, I was born on a rhino farm, I've been hostling them since I could walk. I can tell when they like someone. Don't worry, sir, he's warm and safe there. I fall asleep in the pen sometimes, too."

"Thank you, pikeman, that's very reassuring," the General said. He began to gather his tea cups to him. "Lieutenant, I’ll leave you be. I need to write some letters, and after that I can go sit with my nephew until he wakes up. Thank you for lending me your expertise. Is there anything I can get you? Are you comfortable?"

“Sir,” Jee nodded. “No, sir, thank you. All I need is rest. I’ll just go down to freshen up, and give the first mate time to fix my window. If you can do it now, that is?”

Haisu was staring up at the ruined window, stroking his chin in a very General-like fashion.

“Sure,” Haisu said. He turned to Shi. “Go get Peng and come back, will you? If you can hold that glass in place while we solder from both sides, it shouldn’t take long.”

"Yes, sir!" Shi gave a half-baked salute, shot a weird look at Jee, and ambled out in no great hurry. 

Jee frowned at his retreating back. They really needed to have a refreshment drill on military form and etiquette, and on not addressing the first mate like he'd been screwing you behind the engine for years, even if it was true.

He bid the General farewell, shrugged on an old, soft shirt that would hide his burn without chafing at it, and went out to brave the world.

There were more half-hearted greetings in the corridors, from men with a bleary-eyed look about them that confirmed Jee’s earlier suspicions about a baiju party. At least half of them were too distracted or tired to notice that Jee wasn’t looking too good. The other half stared, but if they’d heard anything about how Jee got hurt, they wisely kept it to themselves.

After a visit to the latrines, Jee dragged himself to the galley and rummaged around until he found some rice cakes. The General’s meal had been nice, but Jee hadn’t eaten properly since yesterday. 

Jee leaned against the stove and sunk his teeth into a soft cake. It tasted bland and sticky, and it was a struggle to eat. Of course. He couldn’t have anything without struggling for it today.

Zuko could use some of these, probably. It sounded like he hadn’t eaten even when his uncle tried to make him. And Jee still had some time to waste before his cabin wasn’t full of chatterboxes trying to gossip and fix a window at the same time. 

Mind made up, Jee wrapped three cakes in a piece of paper and headed towards the hold of the ship.

He was tired, and he hurt all over, and it was still a struggle to look people in the eyes and pretend that he hadn’t let himself get kicked around in the arena by a talking hog-monkey just hours before. They didn’t know, but that barely made it better.

He’d be fine in a couple of days. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He tried something big, he failed, and then he got up again and found a bottle and trudged on – the story of his life, really. 

But he felt so desperately sorry for the poor brat. Zuko wasn’t going to be fine in a couple of days. In a way, the kid had to be almost as used to failure as Jee - he didn’t seem to be doing much besides fall on his face day in, day out. But this wasn’t going to be something he could easily recover from. He was going to lose his ship, and who knew what else.

And he was still so young, and he still had that mad, stupid _hope_ that he could get up and do _better_ next time. That took strength. A lot of it.

He’d stayed strong when Jee dealt him another disappointment this morning. He’d had to be screaming inside when he helped Jee to his feet, back there in the mud of the camp, but he hadn’t let it get to him until he’d made sure that both Jee and himself were safely back on the ship. He’d been strong and kind for Jee when Jee couldn’t even make himself stand up.

He deserved so much better than this. But Jee wasn’t the one who could give it to him.

Jee was so busy feeling sorry for himself that he nearly crashed into scullion Sen, who was trying to navigate the stairs up from the hold with a large wooden tray held out in front of him.

“Sorry, sir!” The tray almost spilled its contents anyway as he tried to salute Jee without letting go of the handholds.

Jee waved it off and stepped back onto the landing to let Sen and his cargo pass. It was… smelly.

“Why are you carrying around… piles of fish?”

Sen smiled down at the tray as if it contained his firstborn.

“They’re cat-cod, sir! Very tasty, but only to be found in the polar seas down south. I went down to those Kyoshi boats down at the other end of the harbor again. I’m just taking these up to show them to the General. He’ll be so pleased!”

“I can imagine,” Jee said. So far, they’d failed to discover a food that the General disliked. Besides komodo chicken. “Didn’t the first mate tell you the budget is tighter than usual?”

Sen nodded. “Yes, sir, that’s the good part - they’re setting sail for home right about now, so I got them to give me all this for only a silver.”

Jee took a second look at the fish. That was a steal, and bargains were something they were in sore need of right now.

“Is there anything else they’re trying to get rid of? Can you go get more?”

Sen shrugged. “They were packing up to leave, sir, they’d probably be gone by the time I get there again. And they didn’t have much other merchandise left, just some Avatar junk. Carvings of Avatar Kyoshi, writings about Avatar Kyoshi, fans with Avatar Kyoshi on them. You know how they are. We should just drop Prince Zuko off over there, he'd feel right at home.”

“Pity,” Jee said. “Good work anyways. Dismi…”

Wait. _Wait._

Spirits in ginger sauce.

“Sir?”

Jee almost knocked the tray out of Sen’s hands after all as he tore up the stairs towards the cabins. 

He banged his shins on steps so many times that it was a miracle his legs remained attached, but he made it up to Zuko’s room in record time. He made a beeline for the sea chest behind Zuko’s table, threw it open, and looked at the pile of neatly arranged scrolls inside. _All about Avatars past. Priceless to whoever gives a crap about Avatar junk._

He had no idea which scroll was which, but no matter. He grabbed five from the top.

On his way down, he stopped in his own room to dig up the shoulder bag he kept in his own single sea chest. He threw the scrolls into it. Then he rounded on Haisu, who stood at the window, holding a measure and wearing an extremely quizzical look on his face.

“Heng, what…”

“Listen,” Jee interrupted. “We need to call a crew meeting _right now_.”

  


* * *

  


Jee almost fell to his death three times as he tried to work out the details of the plan while navigating the narrow ladders downwards to the hold. This sounded crazy even in his head. It sounded stupid. Too easy…

But it could work. It could. There was very little time, and it all depended on a dozen people doing the right things in the right way, and Zuko would have to be persuaded to be _nice_ to strangers, and… 

_It could work._ Zuko would do it if Jee explained. Nobody wanted this more than him.

As if providence was on Jee’s side, the door to the rhino hold opened just as he arrived. Shi stepped out, and yelled in fright when Jee almost ran him over.

“You! Saddle Prince Zuko’s rhino, now!”

Shi blinked. “What? Sir? I need to go fix your window now.”

“Forget the window, man! Saddle the damned rhino!”

Shi opened his mouth a few times before he found his voice. “…Just Prince Zuko’s rhino, sir?” 

Jee took a deep breath and willed himself to be patient. Shi wasn’t being difficult on purpose. That wasn’t a stupid question. And it really wasn’t done to have a prince leave without an escort, for certain, but Jee couldn’t let anyone save Zuko leave. Especially not the rhino idiots. He’d need them on the ship.

“Yes, just him. And when you’re done, go help the first mate get the word out to everyone on board. General Iroh wants all of you in the mess at once for an important announcement.” 

Shi was still blinking. “Announcement about what, sir?”

Jee took another, deeper, breath.

“Pikeman. Shut up, do as I say _right now, running_ , and you’ll be off latrine duty for the next six months.”

That seemed to make things very clear in Shi’s mind all of a sudden. 

“Yes, sir!” He hurried back into the rhino hold without waiting to be dismissed.

Jee followed him in, already dreading having to go near the rhino to extract Zuko from under it, but luck favored him once more. Zuko was already standing outside the pen. His bleary glare went from Jee, to Shi who was leading the little rhino out of its – her – pen, and back to Jee. 

“What’s this? What was all that shouting for?”

He looked too tired to be annoyed. He smelled of great unwashed rhino beast, and there was hay in his hair.

“Sir,” Jee said, looking Zuko up and down, from the hooded gray tunic to the old slippers. _he doesn’t have time to put on his uniform, but this’ll do, it’ll have to do._

“Sir, tell me,” he went on as Zuko made to open his mouth and blurt out another confused question. “Is an expedition to the South Pole all you really want? You don’t need a pile of extra money, or more men, or more time on the ship?”

Zuko blinked. The purple smudge under his good eye was so dark that he look like someone had punched him in the face. 

“…What?” He frowned. “Hey, that’s my stuff. My scrolls!”

_“Is that expedition all you need, sir?”_

Zuko seemed to pick up on the urgency in Jee’s voice. He snapped his mouth shut, and his face took on that strange, fierce certainty that he’d displayed when he decided out of the blue to go to the South Pole.

“Yes. All I need is the expedition.”

Jee nodded. Yes. Good. That was good. 

“Sir, listen very carefully. I need you to get on your rhino and hurry to the Kyoshi boats at the end of the dock. They’re about to leave, you have to be very fast. You need to show them these scrolls, tell them that you have more where these came from, that they’re all about Avatar things, and that you want to trade them for supplies for a twenty-one man expedition to the South Pole. Preserved food. Coats. Snowshoes. That sort of thing, things Kyoshi Island has.”

Zuko seemed to process that for a moment.

“…Then we still don’t have the plating. Don’t you tell me Kyoshi Island has a harbor that can service Fire Nation ships, I know it doesn’t.” 

He was starting to look suspicious now, as if he thought Jee might be playing some horrible joke on him.

“Sir, I’ll take care of that. I think I know a way to convince the men to go south without the plating. But _you_ need to run and get us our supplies! Now!” 

Zuko blinked, and didn’t move, and then Jee had to grab his upper arms in sheer desperation. 

“Sir, please trust me. Do as I say. I know you don’t have any reason to, but I _beg_ you, trust me one more time.”

Shi’s voice sounded from behind them, almost drowned out by the baying of an irritated rhino. “Prince Zuko, sir, she’s ready to go! Opening the doors now!”

“ _Go_ ,” Jee pleaded.

Zuko goggled at him for a moment longer. Then his mouth tightened into a furious line of determination.

He threw the bag over his shoulder, whirled around, and took a running leap onto the rhino just as the great bay door rolled open. A shout and a kick to the beast’s side, and they were off like a shot.

Jee rushed to the bow ramp to watch them go. That rhino was _fast_. It skidded, then turned just before it would have slammed right into a large cart piled high with armor, its feet sending sprays of mud over a few hapless camp bystanders. 

Zuko’s whole body snapped to the side and hung in the air, connected to his mount only by the reins. For a heart-stopping moment, Jee was sure he was about to be thrown off and break his stupid royal neck.

Then Zuko landed back in the saddle, and the rhino dove into the crowd at breakneck speed, leaving screams of terror and outrage in its wake.

Jee squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to see if Zuko ran anyone over or got himself killed. _If you didn’t see it, old boy, it didn’t happen._

There was some yelling from up on the deck as crewmen noticed the brat prince's mad ride. Jee ignored the small uproar, took a deep breath, and began to hurry up the tower stairs to the royal cabins.

Jee was wheezing a little by the time he made his way to the General’s cabin. The door was open, and the old man was sitting behind his table again, brush flowing across the paper. 

“A moment, please…” He looked up, and his eyes widened a little. “Lieutenant? What’s the matter?”

“Sir,” Jee managed. He needed to take a few deep breaths before he could go on. “I think I may know a way for us to go south at once.”

The General put down his brush, slowly. 

“Really?”

“Yes, sir, but I need your help.”

The General reached into the tea chest behind him, not taking his eyes off Jee. “Sit down and tell me.” A second steaming cup of tea appeared on the table.

Jee settled down and folded his hands on his knees. The General leaned in a bit, eyes intent and almost -almost- hopeful.

Jee took a deep breath.

“Sir, would _you_ be willing to risk a journey south without protective plating?”

The General stroked his beard.

“Perhaps. It’s definitely unwise, but Prince Zuko would find a way to put his life in danger even if we decided to spend the winter in the hot springs of Benizakura. The exact location where I’ll be doing my worrying about him hardly matters to me. At least the South Pole is interesting, and I find life on this ship much easier when Prince Zuko is preoccupied with a project he believes in.” The old man’s gaze turned sharp and shrewd over his teacup. “Why do you ask, Lieutenant?”

Jee pushed his palms and fingers together. He kept his hands on his thighs for now, but he’d beg if he had to.

“Sir, I think I have a way to get us our gear and supplies. But not the plating. I need you to convince the crew to take the trip anyway. They respect you more than any man in the world, and if you ask them to take you on one last journey, most of them will feel obliged to come. We’re getting the first mate and the rhino riders to rally the crew. With some luck, they can be convinced.”

The General put down his cup. He stared at Jee like he was looking at the inside of his skull.

“Do _you_ not think this expedition is dangerous, Lieutenant? I wouldn’t have expected you to argue Prince Zuko’s side for a plan that involves very real danger to this ship.”

Jee took a moment to compose himself and make sure that his next words came out quite dispassionately.

“Of course I see the danger, sir. But I feel it would be dishonorable of me not to do my best to give Prince Zuko a last chance at finding the Avatar, before he’s forced to give up.”

The General stroked his beard.

“I see. And you would have me abuse my reputation among the men to guilt them into agreeing to accompany me on this dangerous journey?”

Well. “Yes, sir.”

The General smiled and nodded. “That should work! Where is Prince Zuko?”

Jee squashed the urge to punch the air in victory.

“Sir, Prince Zuko has a collection of scrolls about the Avatar. Expensive things. He was hoping to sell them in Ishihama, before…” Well, before.

The General nodded. “I’ve seen my nephew’s scrolls, I helped him learn a few ancient languages so he could read more of them. I wouldn’t have believed he would ever willingly part with them. Except as a last resort…”

Jee waved that line of thought away. “Sir, Prince Zuko has just left to ask the Kyoshi people if they want to trade the scrolls for supplies. Food. Clothing. Snow gear.”

A few seconds of tense silence passed as the old man seemed to ponder Jee’s idea.

Then he nodded. “They would certainly be _able_ to give us the provisions and equipment we need to go onto the ice. Their food stores will be full at this time of the year, and they have much experience sailing and trading in the polar sea.”

Jee remembered to breathe.

“I’ve already called a crew meeting, sir. If we manage to convince the men to go south, and Prince Zuko convinces the Kyoshi folk to trade the scrolls for supplies…”

A flash of horror past over the General’s face. “Wait. You sent my nephew to do… diplomacy?”

Well. That sounded like a fantastically stupid idea, now that someone said it out loud.

“…Yes, sir.” 

The General didn’t say anything. He only looked more concerned.

“Sir, he needs to learn it sometime.” Jee quietly sent a prayer to Zuko’s ancestors, beseeching them to watch over their son and make him be polite to the Kyoshi people. “He knows how important this is, sir. He’ll do his best.”

“I wonder,” the General mused. “Well. I suppose this will be interesting, however it turns out.”

Jee was too tired to want things to be _interesting_. He just wanted them to work. He wanted something to go their way, just once, just this one thing.

_Please, spirits, please._

“It’d be worse if Prince Zuko were at the crew meeting, sir. Better if they’re not reminded he’ll be there if they agree to go south for half a year.”

“True. Let’s do our part, then, and trust Prince Zuko to do his.” The General got to his feet. He looked sharp and resolute, and rather a lot like the fearsome military commander of the past.

Haisu met them halfway down the stairs to the mess.

“General Iroh, Lieutenant Jee, sir. The men are all waiting for you.”

The General nodded gravely, as if this was all his plan and he’d been meaning to do it for weeks.

“Excellent. Thank you, First Mate, let us go at once.”

Jee turned to Haisu as they fell into step behind the General. “How do things look?”

“The rhino riders will vote in favor of your plan,” Haisu murmured. “They all feel like the Prince is their stupid little brother, spirits help them. And we have Cook and Peng, of course, and Lin Ming. Cook said he’d talk to Sen. Bao and Lei and the like are a lost cause, probably, but they’ll have to cave if you can pull the rest along. Should work if you convince another two or three.” 

“Keep an eye on Bao. I don’t want him pulling off his boots and showing off his toe stubs and going on about how we’re all going to freeze our dicks off if we go near the South Pole again.” Ahead, the General winced a little, no doubt remembering the same images of frostbite Jee was trying to banish from his mind.

Haisu shrugged. “We can’t stop him. But Shi and Niu were on that expedition too. They got just as frostbitten as him, but they’ll still vote in favor. That should count for something.”

Jee glowered. “Not enough. We can’t afford any of those damned yellow-bellied whiners to turn the mood against us.”

Haisu shrugged.

“If Bao or Lei get too excited, I can signal Shi to start a fight so you have an excuse to kick them all out of the room before the vote,” Haisu murmured. He glanced at Jee. “A gold for me, and no latrine duty for Shi for the whole expedition.” 

Jee stared at Haisu. The man didn’t even have the decency to look abashed. 

The General made a sound that could have been the wheeze of an old man having great difficulty with the stairs to the mess, but sounded just as much like a stifled chuckle.

“Done,” Jee sighed. Sometimes he really wondered why he still imagined that he had any sort of authority on this ship. “How are your retirement savings coming?”

“Pretty good, Heng… sir, thank you for asking. We liked Nan Seng. Might buy a little house there when this is all over.”

Later, Jee was going to tell him all about how fucking cute that was. Now, though, they’d reached the mess. 

All chatter quieted immediately when the General preceded Jee and Haisu into the room. Over a dozen confused, suddenly-not-so-hungover faces swivelled towards the front of the room. The men all knew something interesting was happening, even if they had no idea what.

_Well, let’s not disappoint them._

“Dear members of our most valued crew,” the General intoned. “Thank you for gathering here at such short notice. I have an important announcement for you all.”

He paused for dramatic effect. It would have looked silly on most other people, but the General was a skilled actor.

“I regret to say,” the General continued, “that Prince Zuko and I have no more funds to keep this ship running. Our journey is over.”

It was like a small explosion had gone off. The whole room reverberated with shouts and questions, and Jee had to squeeze his eyes shut and force his hands to remain clasped at the small of his back. They were so loud. He couldn’t believe he was trying to take this drunken gaggle of chicken-goose on an extended trip.

The spectacle really was amazing - amazingly convincing, given that almost half of these people were faking their loud displays of shock and dismay. Haisu had told them about the plan before they even came into the room.

The General raised his arms. The hubbub quieted, slowly, and not quite entirely.

“I am truly sorry to have to give you this news. Prince Zuko is extremely upset, as I’m sure you can imagine. It grieves us both greatly to have to part with you.”

One of the firebenders called out from the back.

“What’s going to happen now, sir?”

The General conjured up a forced smile.

“Prince Zuko and I plan to use the last of our funds to pay you all a bonus, as a token of our gratitude for your loyal service. Then Lieutenant Jee will assume full command of the ship and take you all home to the Fire Nation.” He closed his eyes in apparent fatigue. “Prince Zuko and I will purchase a small boat and continue our search for the Avatar at the South Pole.”

Silence.

Jee was no great actor, but he could tell a moment when he saw one. He straightened up to his full length. It made him wince, visibly, but it probably would help rather than hurt if the crew saw him stand tall and brave even while injured.

He grabbed at his chest, where the bandage was, for maximum effect.

“General Iroh,” he called. “Let me come with you.”

The General’s eyes widened in surprise. They hadn’t agreed on this, but it felt like the right thing to say, and maybe it would help…

“Lieutenant?”

“Sir,” Jee said, hand still pressed on his bandage. “I owe you my life. I could never return to the Fire Nation knowing that I might be leaving you to starve in the ice, or be murdered by Water savages. If there’s three of us, we at least have a chance.”

A charged silence fell. It was a struggle to keep his eyes on the General’s astonished face, instead of peering at the motley assembly in anticipation. Jee quietly pressing his nails into the skin of his palms. 

Three, two, one…

Shi shot to his feet. 

“General Iroh, sir! We’d never leave you to the Water savages like that!”

“Aye!” someone yelled from the back of the room.

Several other voices chimed in with “That’s right!” and “We’re not scared of some ice!”.

He was surrounded by filthy liars and comedians, Jee thought fondly. He carefully kept his face free of all hints of a grin. It was a trial.

The General shook his head.

“Lieutenant, Pikeman… Your loyalty is most touching, but Prince Zuko insists that the crew not follow him any further. It’s too dangerous, you all know how dangerous. I had a devil of a time convincing him to let even me come along.”

“Sir,” Haisu interjected, “we didn’t come on this voyage to stay out of danger. We’re all here because you asked us to come. We can’t just walk away now that you need us the most!” 

The look of utter devotion on the man’s face was worth fifty gold. So was the General’s aggrieved sigh.

“First Mate, we discussed this. Prince Zuko doesn’t want you to risk your lives any further. He and I will be quite fine, we can survive on our own.”

Haisu nodded sagely. “I remember, sir. And I said I disagree, sir.”

The men’s shouts and chatter turned into a wall of excited sound. Half of them were standing up now, yelling at the General and at each other, proclaiming their loyalty and calling coward on anyone who was afraid to follow General Iroh into the pits of hell. So what if the brat prince forbade them to come? They were all experienced and independent Fire Nation men, and they were going to do what they wanted and what was right, not what the officers told them to do.

Jee took a step back and watched the scene unfold. It was working. It was actually working, and so much better than he’d hoped. 

He’d expected it to go wrong. Surely it could still go wrong, in some way. Surely they weren’t just going to get what they wanted, after all this?

  


* * *

  


Jee opened the deck door, meaning to go stand at the railing and see if he could spot Zuko anywhere in the hubbub on the docks – 

\- and was almost bowled over. He had to grab the side of the door to stay on his feet. Then the impact of Zuko’s head against the bandaged burn registered, and Jee yelled in pain.

Zuko stumbled back, holding his nose, wide, wild eyes flying from Jee’s face to his chest. He didn’t have his bag of scrolls anymore. He was also sopping wet, much worse so than he should have been just from the rain. It was barely more than a drizzle by now.

“I’m sorry!”

“What happened to you?” Jee gasped.

“They accept!” Zuko blurted. “They want the scrolls, they’ll give us supplies, they’re coming over here to negotiate right now…” 

Jee closed his eyes as he felt something spring free in his chest, letting him breathe properly for the first time today, right through the pain. 

_Thank all spirits of all nations._

“Well done, sir!”

Zuko stared up at him, hands hovering in the air, as if he wanted to grab Jee’s shirt and shake him.

“Did you convince the crew?” It was as close to a plea as Jee had ever heard from the brat. 

Jee could feel himself beaming. He nodded.

“The men have accepted our proposal, sir.”

Zuko sucked in a breath and held it. His hands found each other, fingers tangling into a nervous knot. 

“We can go? To the South Pole?”

He looked so beautifully gobsmacked that Jee desperately wished he had talent for drawing portraits. He wanted to memorialize that face somehow, but words could never do it justice. 

He just smiled. “Yes, sir. We’re going. I hope you remember where you packed your mitts last time.”

Zuko stared. Then, over a second or two, a baffling amount of horror took over his expression.

“No,” he blurted.

Jee blinked. “What? Sir?”

“I don’t remember where I put my mitts!” Zuko’s good eye was as wide as a gold coin. “We can still go, right?”

Jee bit down on the laugh bubbling up his throat in time, but it was a close thing.

“Yes, of course. We’ll get you beautiful new mitts on Kyoshi Island, sir.” And some new boots. Haisu should be distributing the crew’s wages in a few days, so Jee would have some disposable income. Maybe he could get the brat something extra nice.

And surely Zuko would be snapping out of his total and utter confusion any moment now. The news didn’t seem to have sunk in at all.

It hadn’t sunk in for Jee, either. They were going. Things were going to be fine. They were leaving Zhao behind.

He stared back at Zuko. The brat didn’t take his eyes off Jee, not even to blink, as if he was afraid Jee might disappear in a puff of smoke if he did – along with Kyoshi Island, the promises of the crew, and all the rest of the South Pole expedition. 

“This is it? We’re going to the South Pole?” He said the words with exaggerated movements of the lips, as if he was trying out a foreign language.

“Yes, sir.” Jee couldn’t help but smile. If he made room in his head for anything besides how funny Zuko looked, he might end up thinking about how he’d just enabled his own descent into penguin hell.

Zuko was still gaping at him. Jee was getting the feeling that he was forgetting something. 

And he was starting to get a little disappointed with Zuko’s reaction, to be entirely honest. The bafflement was funny, but he’d hoped for a bit… more.

To cover up the awkward silence, Jee took out the lists of equipment and food stores that Haisu had handed him earlier and placed them in Zuko’s hands. 

“Sir, the first mate wrote down what supplies we need. For you to take to your meeting with the Kyoshi folk. Try to stick to this list as much as possible, unless you spot any really glaring omissions. We should know exactly what we want. They’re merchants, they’ll try to rob us blind if we look like we don’t know what we’re doing. More than they will anyway.” Jee tapped the papers for emphasis. “We need _you_ to make sure we stay within budget, sir. Your esteemed uncle always buys too much. Stick to the lists.”

“I…” Zuko blinked at the papers. “Yes. Understood.”

It looked like Zuko wasn’t going to be functional until he’d had some more time to process things. Best leave him to it, then. Maybe he’d be a little more grateful later on. 

Jee wanted to go back to bed. He was starting to feel more than a little achy and light-headed. The battle-fire he’d been moving on for the last hour or so was wearing off quickly.

He inclined his head. “Good luck negotiating, then, sir…”

Before Jee could excuse himself, a booming voice sounded behind him.

“Prince Zuko!”

The General strode out onto the deck. He took in Zuko’s stunned look and the possibly rather stupid grin on Jee’s face, and his own smile widened.

“Is that the smell of success my old nose detects?” His nose crinkled. “And seawater?”

Jee nodded and opened his mouth, because Zuko seemed incapable of either right now.

“Yes, sir. Prince Zuko says the Kyoshi people are on their way here to negotiate about our supplies.”

“Marvelous! Well done, Prince Zu…” His hands landed on Zuko’s shoulders. “My nephew, why are you all wet?”

Zuko gulped.

“Um.”

He hadn’t reacted much at all when Jee had wanted to know that before, but now that his uncle was asking the question, he looked… Abashed. Embarrassed. He was clasping his hands in front of his stomach again – _wringing_ them, hard enough to crack his knuckles, as he seemed to shrink under the General’s inquisitive stare.

Oh. Maybe it wasn’t quite time yet to retire to his cabin. Jee didn’t know what this was, but he could tell it was going to be good.

The General didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows climbed up his forehead.

“Prince Zuko,” he said, quite gently. “What happened?”

“THERE HE IS, COMMANDER!”

Zuko whirled around, snarling, and for a terrifying moment Jee thought that Zhao might have sent soldiers to come for Zuko on some pretext…

“Wait,” The General said, placing a hand on Jee’s arm.

A group of six women was marching onto the deck. Jee had only seen a Kyoshi Warrior up close once, when he was a young sailor, but that look was unmistakable. They looked fierce and not amused. 

Crewmen were starting to emerge from the deck door, attracted by the yelling and fanning out to either side of Jee and the two royals. The Warriors strode over like they weren’t one whit afraid of being on a Fire Nation ship, surrounded by Fire Nation soldiers.

“Calm down, you’ll get satisfaction later,” the woman in the lead told one behind her, in a surprisingly clear and youthful voice. It was hard to tell ages under that thick makeup. 

She stopped in her tracks a fairly polite distance from them, then pointed at Zuko. 

“Is _he_ with you?”

The General looked at the scowling group, then at his scowling, wet nephew, and seemed to come to some very quick conclusions.

He bowed to the women, very deeply, as if in apology rather than in greeting.

“My name is Iroh, retired General of the Fire Nation. I visited your boat earlier today, and met your civilian companions. It’s a great honor to have you on our humble ship, Miss…?”

The leader’s eyes widened at the name, but she recovered quickly.

“Commander Suki of the Kyoshi Warriors,” she said as she matched the General’s bow.

“Commander,” the General acknowledged. “You and your warriors are welcome indeed. This here is the captain of my ship, Lieutenant Jee. And I believe you have met my nephew, Prince Zuko…?”

“Him!?” the excitable warrior behind her yelled. Zuko hissed.

“I said quiet!” the young Commander snapped. Then, “Excuse us,” as she turned around and spoke to the others in a sharp whisper.

They huddled together for about a minute. Jee caught something that sounded very much like more _Him!?_ and _I told you it was the real one, look at the scar_. 

Finally, the young Commander turned towards them again. 

“General Iroh, please forgive warrior Kimiko. Your nephew insulted her honor earlier.”

“I do apologize, Commander, warrior Kimiko,” the General said. “May I enquire as to the circumstances of…”

Commander Suki crossed her arms and sighed.

“We’d just cast off, and _he_ showed up on the dock and threatened to set our sails on fire if we didn’t turn around and talk with him.”

“My word!” the General said, eyes flying to Zuko in horror. His expression left no doubt that Zuko would be getting his backside tanned if he’d actually set anybody’s sails on fire.

Amazingly, Zuko looked cowed. He didn’t stop staring at warriors, though. They were all staring right back at him.

“We ignored him, and then he jumped in the harbor and swam after us,” Commander Suki said. “We took him on board, just to put him back on the dock and sail away. Then…”

Zuko finally seemed to run out of patience. “If you’d turned around when I asked you politely in the first place…”

Judging by the look on Commander Suki’s face, Zuko’s “politely” might not have been polite by most civilized people’s standards. Jee only prayed he hadn’t said anything about _mud grubbers_ or _filth_. 

The General smiled at Zuko, very briefly, showing his teeth. “Prince Zuko, wait a moment.” 

Then he turned back to the women, bowing again. “Commander Suki, my nephew’s disrespectful attitude is inexcusable. I am so very sorry, he took ill a few days ago and isn’t quite well yet. Would you allow me to offer you and your warriors tea and refreshments inside, so Prince Zuko can apologize to you properly?”

Zuko’s eyebrow did a funny scrunching thing. “Wha…”

“Shhh,” the General said.

“Did you just try to _shush_ …”

The General’s head swiveled towards Zuko again. He looked truly frightening now. If looks could spark, Zuko would be on fire.

Commander Suki looked like she was offended by Zuko’s very existence, but also too curious about what he might do next to turn around and leave. Jee knew that feeling.

“Very well, General,” she said. “Prince Zuko did manage to clarify that you are interested in trading with us?”

Ah. That explained why they were actually here. For a few moments, Jee had been absolutely convinced that they’d come all this way just to demand Zuko’s head on a spike.

The General morphed into a kindly old grandfather again as he turned back to her.

“Just Iroh, please, I retired years ago. And yes, that is correct. Let us make ourselves comfortable and have some tea before we speak of more mercurial matters. Just this way, I will be with you in a moment… Master Cook, could you please escort our guests to my cabin and send up some light snacks? I will prepare the tea.” 

He turned to Zuko. “Prince Zuko, could you fetch your chest of scrolls and join us? And take a few minutes to wash up and change. I got you some new clothes that are just right for entertaining honored company. Scullion Sen, please run ahead to my cabin and take the clothes lying over my sea chest to Prince Zuko’s cabin.” He sniffed at Zuko. “And a washbasin. With soap.”

Zuko stared at him. “Uncle, don’t treat me like a child!”

The General did the smile with the teeth again.

“Wash up properly, nephew. Don’t just bend yourself dry, it makes you smell like seaweed.” He made a few hurrying motions with his hands. “ _Go!_ ”

Zuko looked about to pop from having to contain his fury. It was such a contrast with the almost-happiness he’d been showing earlier that Jee was almost sad.

He looked around, made doubly sure that the crew and the General were focusing on the Kyoshi Warriors, and pressed a brief touch of chi between Zuko’s shoulder blades.

“Sir, remember that you’re going to the South Pole,” he whispered.

Miracle of miracles, it seemed to help. Zuko sighed and closed his eyes.

“Yes,” he murmured back.

“I’ll see you later, sir. Good luck with your negotiations.”

Zuko opened his eyes and looked straight at Jee. 

“Yes.”

And with that, he turned and walked into the superstructure without a word to his uncle or their esteemed guests.

Neither seemed to care much. The General happily bustled the group of young women through the same door Zuko had disappeared through, assuring them over and over that he’d be with them in a few minutes and they should by all means enjoy every moment on the ship. 

Jee was really rather curious what they actually thought of his rust bucket, but not curious enough to try and follow. He wasn’t going to volunteer to do anything anymore today. No attending negotiations until he’d had some sleep at the very least.

“Excellent work today, Lieutenant.” The General looked mightily pleased indeed. 

Jee had to resist the urge to preen a little. “Thank you, sir.”

“Thank _you_ ,” the General said. “Go and take some rest, Lieutenant. You must be exhausted.”

Finally someone had thanked him. Now he could sleep.

“I shall, sir. Thank you.”

The General nodded. “Sleep well, sleep well. And wish me luck – I daresay it will be quite the task to undo any… inaccurate ideas that Prince Zuko might have given our new guests about our friendliness and reliability as trading partners.” 

“Quite right, sir,” Jee agreed. That was going to take some very skillful wordsmithing and stroking of foreign egos. Fortunately, the General could negotiate himself out of the belly of a hippo-whale.

The General’s genial smile turned sly. “But first, I think I’ll stop by Prince Zuko’s cabin to make sure that he wears the new shirt I just bought him. And that he washes, and tidies his hair.” He winked. “I want my nephew to look his best for the young lady Commander!” 

Jee managed to keep in an incredulous guffaw, but only because he had decades of experience at not visibly reacting to hilarious pronouncements by his superiors.

“I’m afraid Prince Zuko may have made an unforgivable… I mean, unforgettable first impression already, Sir.”

The General grinned. “Ah, but she _is_ impressed! Prince Zuko has his charms. Very deep down.” He patted Jee's arm. “Thank you again, Lieutenant. I am so very relieved that we managed to salvage this day.”

Jee didn’t trust himself to speak, so he just bowed at the General’s retreating back. He wondered if he should warn the brat that he was being set up for another one of the General’s helpful attempts at getting his nephew a girl. 

_Nah._

Enough insanity. It was time to leave this to others and get some rest. He’d hear about the result of the negotiations later, but surely the fact that the Kyoshi folk had come to the ship meant that the deal was as good as done. They were just here to hash out the particulars. The General would ply them with tea and compliments, and Zuko would impress them with his large collection of Avatar scrolls, if nothing else.

Jee began to make his way up to his cabin again. His legs were like lead all of a sudden, and the stairs felt three times their usual length.

  


* * *

  


__

_NOTE ATTACHED TO THE DECK DOOR_

__

_Dear crew,_

__

_My apologies for this short notice, but we shall leave this port immediately. If you have any business in the camp, please finish it immediately and be at your stations by the sounding of the watch bell._

__

_We had been planning to purchase expedition supplies here, but Prince Zuko has secured us a much more advantageous source of foodstuffs and gear, namely Kyoshi Island. The inhabitants are intimately familiar with polar travel, and will be able to give us excellent advice and high quality goods._

__

_Our route south will take us past the island, where we will stay anchored for several weeks. There we will wait while our supplies are readied, and we will meet a ship from the mainland that will bring us ample amounts of good coal. We will use the small delay to get used to our new gear and train for the expedition._

__

_And to enjoy a short vacation, which you have all richly deserved! Kyoshi Island is a rare and picturesque destination, one that few Fire Nation citizens ever have the good fortune to visit. Master Cook has asked me to specify to you that while the inhabitants of Kyoshi Island frequently trade with the Water Tribes and have adopted many of their customs, their diet consists largely of fish and vegetables, very like in the Fire Nation. There will be no sea prunes._

__

_I wish to emphasize again that participation in this expedition is entirely voluntary. Anyone who does not wish to go is welcome to leave the ship at this port and offer his services to Captain Zhao._

__

_Thank you._

__

_General Iroh_

__

  


* * *

  


Jee tried to go back to sleep, but found it impossible. He was too wound up from all the excitement, and besides, he felt like there was dirt and mud from Zhao’s camp stuck in every pore in his skin. He was filthy. His _hair_ was full of mud. Every person on this ship, Zuko and the General first, had let Jee run around for hours with his hair full of mud, and they hadn’t said a word. Traitors.

So Jee gave up on his bunk and trudged down to the showers. His original intent was to wash. Then he remembered how relaxing the showers were, and how unlikely he was to be joined in there by anyone else at this time of the day, and decided to stick around.

He couldn’t sit under the shower, not with the wound still like this. But he could sit on one of the low washing stools and let the water flow over his outstretched legs. 

And so he did, for what was quite possibly several hours. He’d deserved at least this. He really had.

Just as he’d begun to worry that the hot water might run out, with the engines turned off, the ship roared to life around him.

Jee closed his eyes and sent a very well-meant prayer of gratitude to every ancestor whose name he could recall. They were leaving. They were leaving this place behind. 

He felt the awakening of the engines as much as he heard it; the sudden bloom of a very large fire only a few rooms away sent a small shock through his chi paths. It was as if all his limbs got pins and needles all at once. 

Almost immediately, the floor of the shower room became pleasantly warm under his bare feet.

It felt divine. Jee leaned forward to let the hot drops flow over his hands and forearms. The skin of his fingers stung from all the combat bending he’d done this morning, but it was a good, sore stinging. He imagined the water washing away any remains of the fireblasts from Zhao that he’d had to block. Then the ship began to move, and he imagined Zhao falling into the dock and being run over. _We tried to avoid him, sir. Here’s the pieces that got stuck in the propellers, sir._

Going to the South Pole, searching the whole coast of the continent, and returning to civilization was going to take at least half a year. No chance of running into Zhao for six whole months. What a magnificent blessing. 

Somewhere to his left, a creaking sounded from the shower room’s door. Jee didn’t open his eyes. He could tell who it was from the fast pulse of fire that made the lamps flare up. The glow brightened through Jee’s eyelids, then settled again. 

“Hello, sir,” he whispered.

Zuko’s footsteps were almost inaudible on the wet metal floor. He must have taken his boots off, like you were supposed to when entering the shower area. How considerate of him.

He stopped next to Jee, just within touching distance.

“Lieutenant.” 

Jee looked to the side. Zuko was wearing the tunic the General had gotten him. It really was a very nice thing - almost the same slate grey as their regular uniform tunics, but with a fine fur lining around the hem and sleeves, thin enough that even Zuko wouldn’t be able to call it too luxurious. It was rather… princely.

“Sir,” Jee nodded. It was good to see him. It really was. It was good to see Zuko whole and healthy and calm. “That looks nice on you, sir.”

Zuko blinked. A smile flitted across his face, there and then gone again.

“I was looking for you,” he said as he folded his hands in front of his stomach. The steam in the air was already making the fur of the tunic form little points on Zuko’s knuckles.

It looked cute.

“Found me, sir.”

Silence. 

Jee was starting to recognize these situations. Zuko had something he wanted to say, but he didn’t know how to go about it, or he wasn’t even sure what exactly was on his mind in the first place. 

He took his time scooping up some water and drizzling it over his shoulder, trying to avoid the bandage.

“I take it the negotiations went well, sir?”

Zuko nodded.

“Yes. Uncle’s very good at talking.”

Oh, Jee had almost forgotten the General’s winking and nudging about the young Commander. He wondered how that had gone.

“Did you like the Kyoshi folk, sir?”

“They’re fine, I suppose?”

So he hadn’t noticed what the General was trying to do. Good. That meant he’d realize later, at a time where Jee might be there to see his face. He was such a funny little man.

But also getting a little annoying with his standing and staring. Jee didn’t exactly want to be ogled while he was exhausted, naked, and covered in bruises and scrapes from a fight he had lost. There were a few scraps of pride he might like to salvage.

He probably looked terrible. He sucked in his stomach, and tried not to look at Zuko’s face.

“Do you need anything, sir?”

Zuko took a small step forward.

“Are you… How are your injuries, Lieutenant?”

Ah.

“Not too bad, sir. The burn hurts a lot, but that’s a good sign. It means it’s fairly shallow.”

“Ah. Good,” Zuko said. There was a hint of genuine relief in his voice. “I… know what it means. The one on my face didn’t hurt in the beginning. Only later.”

Jee blinked. It seemed only days ago that Zuko had thrown a bowl of food at Jee’s head, just for reminding him of those bad old days.

He nodded. “Yes, sir. Pain means things are healing.” Pain was also fucking awful. Jee wished he’d thought to bring the paint stripper down from his cabin.

A brief silence.

“Do you need more poppy tea?”

Jee closed his eyes. “No, sir, thank you. I just need to get this off so the wound can breathe. And wash up.”

He almost jolted up from the low stool when a touch brushed his upper arm.

“Could I…?”

He sounded so uncertain that Jee didn’t have the heart to say _no, don’t touch me._

“…Can you just untuck the end of the bandage at the back, sir? I can’t quite reach it.”

Something pushed against his shoulder blade, quite gently, for only a moment. Then the loose end of the bandage fell forward against Jee’s thigh.

“There.”

“…Thank you, sir.”

Jee leaned back from the spray of salt water so he could safely unwrap the bandage. Even moistened, it didn’t fall away without a painful tug here and there. Possibly Zuko would help him if he asked – definitely, he would definitely help. But Jee didn’t fancy looking more like a weak old man than he already did.

The spikes of pain did work to distract him from the knowledge that he was being watched, by the young man he hoped might still be interested in Jee’s body even after all that had transpired today. 

It was probably okay. If Zuko hadn’t minded before that Jee had a bit of a belly, he probably wasn’t going to start today. It was just… hard to feel like an attractive man in this situation.

He pushed the tangle of dirty bandage into a semi-neat little pile on the floor. Normally he’d let it lie where it dropped, but Zuko was watching.

Time for the next painful and graceless effort – washing while trying to avoid getting salty water onto the burn. If only Zuko would say what he had to say and leave, Jee mused as his bleary eyes roamed the floor in front of him in search of the washcloth. He’d had one earlier. Definitely. He’d definitely washed his legs already.

Jee’s eyes popped open when the unmistakable softness of the washcloth touched his back.

“Sir?”

Zuko made a sharp, impatient noise. At the same time, blissful heat caressed Jee’s back, pushing into sore muscles.

Maybe this wasn’t something he should protest against.

Jee’s eyes fell closed as the soft touch of the cloth rubbed over his skin. It was… nice. 

Zuko clearly wasn’t trying to make it anything seductive; his movements were quick, utilitarian, and he moved on to the next patch of skin whenever he seemed satisfied that the one he was working on was clean.

Still. Jee hadn’t had his back washed by someone else in _years_.

And Zuko didn’t get a single drop of salty water on the burn. Perhaps that wasn’t so surprising, He’d had to wash around his own healing burn for months – more than enough time to figure out twenty ways of keeping salty water from touching an open wound, and still get yourself moderately clean.

Suddenly, absurdly, Jee felt very embarrassed about this scene. He itched to fill the too-intimate silence with something professional.

“We’ve only managed to arrange this one expedition, sir. I don’t know what can be done to keep the ship going after that.” Maybe the General would find more money. Maybe some new bizarre and unforeseeable thing would happen. Zuko might make the Avatar appear by sheer force of will. Surely they’d get their funding back then.

“One more chance. I understand.”

Jee blinked upwards. He’d been so out of it that he hadn’t noticed Zuko walking over to stand in front of him.

“Sir, that’s not what I meant by…” Oh, never mind. Jee refrained from rolling his eyes. It was becoming very clear to him that Zuko just liked seeing everything he did as an all or nothing affair.

He inclined his head. “If that’s how you want to think about it, sir.”

Zuko nodded. He’d turned the shower down to a trickle to keep from getting drenched; he reached behind him, wet the cloth again, and started on Jee’s shoulders and neck. 

It felt so good. Better than Jee deserved.

“…I know it’s not a very heroic or elegant solution, sir. And not a very great solution either. But this is the best we can manage.”

It all felt… messy, and more than a bit stupid. It didn’t feel like a win. Not like an Agni Kai victory would have. They’d weaseled around Zhao, and now they were running away from him.

But in time, and with the help of some drink, the memory of those defeats would smart less. A few days from now, they’d just be glad they were on their way again, far from Zhao and with the hold full of good provisions and new coats and boots.

Zuko nodded.

“I know. I know it’s not perfect, but… it will do.”

“Maybe we’ll think of something else on the way, sir. Some different way to fund our journey. I’ll do my best.”

Zuko glanced at Jee’s face, then looked away. He was slowly sinking into a crouch as he ran the cloth over Jee’s sides with quick motions. It was a very methodical process, and he honestly didn’t seem to be trying to draw it out. If he wasn't finishing up as fast as he could, it was only because he was being overly careful of the wound.

He reached back to dip the cloth into the shower trickle again, steadying himself with one hand on Jee’s knee. 

Then he seemed to come to some sort of decision. Instead of returning the cloth to Jee’s skin, he settled on his haunches, eyes on Jee’s face in an oddly purposeful way. 

Jee tried to look away again, but found that rather difficult all of a sudden.

“Lieutenant,” Zuko said. “It will do. It really will.”

Jee blinked. The warm grip on his knee was quite distracting.

“You found a way to let us continue our mission. That’s… very commendable.” 

Zuko seemed to be having a hard time finding words. He really was cute.

“You’re welcome, sir. Just doing my duty.”

Zuko nodded. “Still, you have my gratitude.”

Before Jee could say anything, Zuko sucked in a breath.

“Also for… for…”

Jee raised an eyebrow, but Zuko glanced away, bowing his head. His knees were on the floor now. His grasp on Jee’s leg had gotten almost painful.

“I didn’t want to fight an Agni Kai,” he whispered, eyes fixed on his own knees. “I was… afraid…”

Little rivulets of water welled up between the fingers still clutching the washcloth. They added to the dark stain that was spreading across Zuko’s knees as he knelt on the wet floor.

Oh. Jee inclined his head, deeply, and patted the hand trying to crush his knee. _There, there._

“There’s no shame in that, sir, I know you’d have gone if you had to. And it was my pleasure to help you.”

Zuko nodded. He was keeping his lips pressed together tightly, as if he wasn’t sure what might come out otherwise.

Suddenly, he looked up.

“Lieutenant. Is there anything you… want?”

Jee blinked.

“Want? Sir?”

Zuko’s face hardened with determination.

“Yes. A boon. Anything that’s in my power to give.”

Huh. “I didn’t win my fight, sir. And it wasn’t a proper Agni Kai.” Not to mention that Zuko hadn’t even been involved. He definitely didn’t have to hand out boons.

Zuko shook his head once, sharply.

“You have to ask for something,” he insisted.

“I was just doing my job, sir.” Well, maybe he had been going above and beyond, but that had been Jee’s own choice.

“A _boon_ ,” Zuko insisted, in a tone that suggested neither of them were leaving this room until Jee thought of a _boon_ or they both starved. “There has to be something you want from me! Tell me now, I don’t want to have to guess!”

Jee almost rolled his eyes. Fine, fine. Was there anything he wanted right now? Maybe he could ask for a backrub, or for Zuko to get him a bowl of noodles or something…

Then he took a proper look at the almost maniacal earnestness on Zuko’s face, and suddenly this wasn’t very funny anymore.

He was actually serious. Dead serious. Jee could ask for _anything _right now, and the brat would give it to him. If he asked to be allowed to fuck Zuko, the brat would probably disrobe and bend over on the spot. If he asked that Zuko go out on deck and apologize on his knees in front of the crew for being a little shit, he’d probably take a deep breath and do it. If he demanded that Zuko tell him the spirits-damned stupid secret of why he was banished out here instead of in Caldera, Zuko would tell.__

__It was frightening. A little._ _

___That boy will be either Fire Lord or dead_ , Zhao had said. Suddenly, Jee believed it absolutely._ _

__All he really wanted right now was to drink more paint stripper and go lie down. In the very near future, he wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and that Zhao-infested place, and he also wanted to bed Zuko. But he was fairly sure that all those things were going to happen whether he asked for them or not._ _

__In this moment, all he wanted from the brat was this. What he already had._ _

__Jee smiled._ _

__“Very well, Sir. May I ask for a kiss?”_ _

__Zuko’s single eyebrow curled up. He looked almost indignant._ _

__“Just a _kiss_?”_ _

__“It’s what I want right now, sir.” Which was actually kind of true. Just hours ago, he’d been almost sure that he was never going to have even a little peck on the cheek again._ _

__Zuko’s whole face scrunched up, like there was too much going on behind his skin._ _

__“Are you serious?”_ _

__Jee nodded. “Yes, sir.”_ _

__“Right,” Zuko said, eyes narrowing._ _

__He dropped the washcloth to the floor, shuffled forward until he was between Jee’s parted legs, and straightened up on his knees. That put his head just a little higher than Jee’s._ _

__He breathed in, deeply, and took hold of Jee’s shoulders. The grip of his fingers was oddly loose, almost awkward._ _

__He was trying to be careful of the injuries, Jee realized after nothing had happened for a moment or two._ _

__“It doesn’t hurt too much, sir,” he said softly._ _

__Zuko nodded. He was frowning in concentration._ _

__“Close your eyes.”_ _

__Jee lifted an eyebrow at him, and Zuko’s frown deepened. He looked very nervous._ _

__“Do as I say, Lieutenant!”_ _

__“All right, sir, all right,” Jee murmured as he closed his eyes. He felt a smile tug at his lips._ _

__Then there was warm breath on his cheeks, and a press of lips against his moustache, then on the corner of his mouth._ _

__Oh. This was nice._ _

__Jee hummed into the kiss, opening up a little in anticipation of that slick little tongue. It didn’t come, though. There was no rush of chi - no more than some sparks as Zuko's chapped lips slid over Jee’s, all pliant and warm under a thin film of hardening skin._ _

__Zuko didn’t try to use his hands either. His fingers stayed at the sides of Jee’s neck, their grip tight and oddly gentle at the same time. The fur trim of the shirt brushed against Jee’s throat, as soft as feathers._ _

__When Zuko wobbled a bit on his knees, Jee reached for him, folding both hands around the brat’s hips. If he pulled Zuko in closer, he’d end up against the burn._ _

__This was a bit awkward, but now his thumbs were pressed against Zuko’s stomach, right over the warm fire underneath. It throbbed in time with Zuko’s heartbeat, steady and strong, without a hint of anything unpleasant at all._ _

__Jee’s fingers slid under the tunic until they touched bare skin – smooth, hot, slick skin. _All mine_ , a giddy voice whispered inside Jee’s head as static electricity from the fur began to prickle across his knuckles. _Zhao will never even touch him. All mine.__ _

__Jee nipped at Zuko’s lower lip, and that got him a brief chuckle. Still, Zuko kept the kiss oddly chaste. His lips were barely even moving against Jee’s._ _

__A few more moments, and then Zuko pulled away a little with a slow, almost sleepy blink._ _

__“Was that enough?” he lisped._ _

__Jee had to touch him more. He couldn’t help it. His hands lifted to cup Zuko’s face, one side smooth and firebender-warm, the other roughened scar._ _

__And then he didn’t know what to do. Zuko was looking at him like what he’d just done had flustered him more than all the times they’d kissed while Jee had two hands down his loincloth and a tongue in his mouth. His good cheek was blossoming red and hot under Jee’s fingers._ _

__If Jee had been in better health, and less tired, and stronger, he would have liked to do something silly like pick the brat up and carry him up the stairs towards a bed. It would have to wait._ _

__“Yes, sir,” Jee whispered. “That was enough. That was very nice. Thank you.”_ _

__Zuko stared at him as if he was searching for something – some hint that Jee was lying._ _

__“If there’s anything else you can think of…”_ _

___He feels like he failed you. All of us._ _ _

__Oh, kid._ _

__Jee lifted a hand and cupped the back of Zuko’s head. A hint of stubble rasped against Jee’s palm._ _

__He pushed, gently, until Zuko’s forehead was resting in the hollow of his throat._ _

__“Sir, this is enough,” he whispered. “You’re enough. I like being here. I like you.”_ _

__Zuko’s head grew heavier on Jee’s shoulder. He sighed, breath hot and soft._ _

__“I’ll make it count,” he murmured after a few moments, voice low and hoarse._ _

__Jee blinked. “What, sir?”_ _

__Zuko swallowed. He lifted his head again._ _

__“The expedition,” he said, louder now. “I’ll make it count. I swear. I’ll…”_ _

__He took a deep breath._ _

__“We _will_ succeed,” he insisted. “Your work won’t be wasted.”_ _

__Jee brushed a thumb over the healthy side of Zuko’s face, over the strong line of the cheekbone. Then he leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on the swell of dark purple skin under Zuko’s good eye._ _

__“I pray we will, sir,” he said._ _

__He was surprised to find that he meant it. They deserved more than this. They deserved success. Zuko deserved success – some form of it, enough to make him content, enough so he could smile every now and then and sleep well at night._ _

__A ringing sounded far above them. Zuko’s eyes opened wide. He pressed his lips together and began to get to his feet._ _

__“I’m, uh, supposed to oversee the changing of the watch,” he said. “I’ll be late, I need to go. Will you get back to your cabin by yourself?”_ _

__Jee nodded._ _

__“I feel quite well, sir. Just tired. Go attend to your duties.” Ah, wait. “I’m supposed to be on the midnight watch later. Can you come wake me up if I don’t notice the bell?”_ _

__“Rest,” Zuko said, from the doorway. “I’ll do your tasks.”_ _

__A generous offer, but the brat had to be exhausted as well. It had been a rough few days. “It’s all right, sir, a few hours of sleep will set me right. Maybe I can’t wear my armor until this heals, but I can oversee a watch without it.”_ _

__Zuko stared at him. He looked like something, somewhere, was confusing him greatly, but he couldn’t figure out what exactly._ _

__“No,” he finally said. “I… want you to sleep?”_ _

__He sounded like he wasn’t sure where that thought had even come from._ _

__Ah, he really was quite adorable when he tried. Jee found himself smiling in spite of the exhaustion and the pain in his chest._ _

__“All right, sir.”_ _

__Zuko stared at him from the doorway. He was oddly monochrome, all in grey and black, with the scar the only splash of color on his skin._ _

__Strange. Jee had been touching the mark when he held Zuko’s face in his hands, and he’d still barely noticed it was there._ _

__“Good night, sir.”_ _

__“…Good night,” Zuko echoed._ _

__He was worrying his lower lip. His face was still that curious mix of openness and befuddlement, as if he’d never seen Jee before in his life._ _

__Jee didn’t shut his eyes again until the door closed._ _

__He listened to the thumping of the engines, and curled his toes against the blissful heat of the floor, and slowed his breathing so he could enjoy the steam rushing into his throat and his lungs. His lips still felt pleasantly swollen from the sparks. Every inch of him was warm._ _


End file.
